Neonatal pain assessment and procedural comfort - structured clinical encounter

Station brief (candidate)

You are the neonatal registrar. A 27-week gestation infant, now 10 days old and growing well on continuous gastric feeds, has capillary gases taken by heel lance twice daily as part of a planned course. With each lance the infant grimaces, desaturates, and goes rigid. The bedside nurse asks how to make the lances less painful. The team asks you to explain why this infant is vulnerable, to choose the assessment tool, to build the comfort plan with the sucrose regimen, and to recommend one unit-wide measure that reduces the cumulative pain burden. You have 12 minutes with the team and 5 minutes for examiner discussion. ^[1]