Am i burned out?

Specialties School

Published

Is it me or are children today getting whinier and whinier? I am just astounded at the missed class time for paper cuts and tiny drops of spilled white milk on a white shirt!

Kids get upset when I don't have a magic wand to wave to get rid of their tiny booboos!

I really strive to give these kids the tools to handle minor aches and pains but it is hard when everyone else is babying them so much!

Or is it me getiing burned out? I don't feel like I am "above" giving a band-aid for a paper cut. But, I do feel it takes time away from health education, etc.

Maybe I just needed a Friday vent!

Specializes in School Nursing.

Well, being the FT nurse is a lot different than subbing, first of all. I'm assuming you are not doing screenings, shot records review, or much computer work? The last sub I had did not even do any of the procedures my school has...it was left to my staff who I train to cover in my absence. Usually a sub just monitors the office for illness and injury complaints. For me, as FT nurse of a elementary school of 500+, that is about 20% of my job. And it is never boring or monotonous, lol.

I'm also concerned that you would say we "don't have to worry about killing" our patients. That attitude from a school nurse, sub or otherwise, is scary. The assessments we do are every bit as important to life and limb as those in the hospital setting.

Specializes in acute care then Home health.
Well, being the FT nurse is a lot different than subbing, first of all. I'm assuming you are not doing screenings, shot records review, or much computer work? The last sub I had did not even do any of the procedures my school has...it was left to my staff who I train to cover in my absence. Usually a sub just monitors the office for illness and injury complaints. For me, as FT nurse of a elementary school of 500+, that is about 20% of my job. And it is never boring or monotonous, lol.

I'm also concerned that you would say we "don't have to worry about killing" our patients. That attitude from a school nurse, sub or otherwise, is scary. The assessments we do are every bit as important to life and limb as those in the hospital setting.

Purple Scrubs, I do all of those things mentioned in your above post and the half day of training I had from the regular school nurse was sufficient to learn the entire job. I am not a sub for a day, its for three months so I am expected to cover all of the aformentioned responsibilities. I did not say the job was easy, it has its drawbacks and positives just like any other nursing job. I just don't feel that for me, it is the most fufilling or challenging of the areas I've worked in. And as far as the "killing your patients" comment. I think if you worked a day in critical care you would get it.

Specializes in School Nursing.

I have worked in critical care. I stand by my post. If you are supposed to handle screenings and immunization records, and you are not staying busy with that, either you have a very small atypical school or you are doing something wrong.

Specializes in acute care then Home health.

yawn:zzzzz:zzzzz

Specializes in School Nursing.

I encourage you to not accept any future school nursing positions. Clearly you do not take the position very seriously and you are doing a disservice to the students.

If you are truly that bored, why not take a look at the thread that is a "sticky" on this forum for creative activities for school nurse downtime. Somehow I have a feeling you won't though.

https://allnurses.com/school-nursing/boredom-job-creative-352600.html

Specializes in acute care then Home health.

HMMM its the middle of the school day everywhere in the US and your on allnurses.com typing away. Maybe you have more free time than you think.

Specializes in OB/GYN, Peds, School Nurse, DD.

C'mon, y'all. Do we really need to get into a p*****g contest over this? I'd daresay that a lot of us school nurses have worked in critical care at some point. We don't need to prove ourselves all over again.We don't need to get into that age-old one-upmanship of nursing--you know what I mean: OR beats ER beats CCU beats Med-Surg beats Ped and L&D, which ALLL beat office nursing, camp nursing and school nursing.:uhoh3: Let's just enjoy what we're doing *now* and celebrate the fact that we have so much flexibility in our careers.

There was a time when i could hold my own in any NICU or PICU and I did on nights for 15 years. Today I *choose* to work in a less stressful environment. I couldn't hit a vein with a dead muskrat, but i don't need to. I have developed other skills appropriate to the job I have now. Skills which I didn't have when I worked in critical care, btw. If you love school nursing, bully for you. If you don't love it, fine. School nurses are not required to be warm & fuzzy any more than Critical Care nurses need to be uptight Type As personalities. There's room for all of us here.

Specializes in School Nursing.

I agree completely, I just feel that lsvalliant's posts minimize the role of the school nurse. Any many areas, mine included, school nursing jobs are being cut right and left. There are already those who think what we do is not vital, but we know differently.

Yesterday in a district about an hour from mine, a school nurse used an AED and saved the life of a 7th grade athlete who went into cardiac arrest during a sporting event. In the panic of the moment, the athletic trainers and coaches didn't know what to do. If she had not been there, the student might have died.

Extreme example, sure. But school nurses affect student's lives every single day. If they are taking their jobs seriously, that is.

Specializes in acute care then Home health.

Clearly there is a need for school nurses. There are still diabetic patients, asthmatics, and po meds in school and yes the occasional emergency. I do however think that requiring a BSN (in some states) is a little overkill. In California, schools for the most part utilize LPNs for the role as school nurse. I honestly think, especially with the current budget crisis in that state, that LPN's are sufficient for the job because everything school nurses do is within their scope.

I'm not trying to say that one specialty is better than the another. For me, however I have found that school nursing just didn't make the top of my most awesome job list. Thats just one opinion tho. And like I said before.. Kudos to the people who love it because clearly not everyone does.

Specializes in School Nursing.

My district hires only BSN RNs for the position. The logic is that teachers are at minimum bachelor prepared, often master's prepared, and they want nurses to be seen as professionals on the same level as teachers, so they want the education requirements to be the same. I totally get that because it is hard enough to get respect as a school nurse.

Also, in some states it is not within the scope of practice for an LVN to do assessments, which is obviously critical for a school nurse. The supervising RN could not be running from school to school every time there is a head injury that needs a neuro assessment.

It definitely takes a certain kind of person to be a school nurse. It is pretty much independent practice so you have to be self-directed and get things done without someone telling you what to do next. It is both the hardest and the most rewarding job I've ever had.

Specializes in OB/GYN, Peds, School Nurse, DD.

Ours is a small system, about 12 schools serving mostly impoverished families. We have some sub nurses that are as good as any nurse I've *ever* met. They are in their 70s but you'd never know it--they have a ton of energy. I have a lot of respect for them because they not only keep up with all the kids, but they've been doing school nursing for about 20 years! Nothing gets by these ladies! :lol2: We have LPNs, RNs, BSNs, and a couple NPs. Im one of the younger nurses of the bunch...and i'm 55!

I think we will see more LPNs in our schools, partly because of the cost savings. In my school system, most of our schools could be served by an LPN. We have a handful of kids who require a higher level of care, but those schools have designated Special Needs Nurses assigned to them.

Specializes in Onc/Hem, School/Community.

I've done bone marrow transplant (critical care) and now school nursing. Each requires its own set of special skills and critical thinking. School nursing involves a lot of compassion and toughness and excellent assessment skills. Last year, I had three kids I sent to the hospital and each required an appendectomy. I had a fractured arm that required surgery and a fractured foot X 2 (both staff members). I've hounded parents whose children were wetting themselves every day because "they won't get potty trained" until they finally took them to a PCP, to find kidney or bladder issues. You cannot be stupid or lazy and do this job effectively. I agree that I may not have "life or limb" threatening issue on a weekly basis like I did in BMT, but I still have them. When I have them, I am on my own with no support (and trying to calm everyone else down), until EMS arrives for transport and we confer on the child's condition. And just like most nursing jobs, we are overworked, under paid, and under-appreciated. The first six months I worked in the school system, I thought I was over-qualified and bored with the job. Time taught me otherwise and now I can't imagine doing anything else for a long time, if ever. Just my two cents for the person yawning.

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