Respect....or the lack thereof...(RANT ALERT!)

Specialties School

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OK, maybe I'm just getting cranky in my old age, but I've become quite annoyed at the disrespectful actions of a few.

My office has 2 doors, and at times staff uses it as a "short cut" - but, that's a practice I've been trying to stop. First, the privacy issue: students shouldn't have to be assessed in front of staff bustling in & out . Sometimes there are contagiously ill kids, awaiting pick up. BUT the latest kicker was this:

A guardian (grandparent) brought in meds for his grandsons. He is disabled & walks with the aid of a rolling walker. He & I were standing face to face, in MY office when a teacher pushed through between us! As if that weren't bad enough, she came back through us, running out of MY office in the other direction!

That was my last straw. I placed a notice on the extraneous door stating "please use other door" and I keep it closed at all times now. Of course, this means I have to ignore the pounding on the closed door, presumably by illiterates....

Now today, a child (sweet kid but frequent flyer) came straight in from the bus, saying she threw up on the bus, but "swallowed it". No odor of vomit. color good - so I told her to go to class, take off her coat & get settled in for the day.

She wasn't gone 15 seconds before her teacher marched her back in & demanded I take her temp. I let the teacher know I had sent the kid to class and the teacher interrupted & said to take her temp & if there's no fever, to send her to class.

Naturally she was afrebrile. Later in the day, I actually spoke up and let the teacher know (privately) that I didn't appreciate her questioning my nursing judgement, especially in front of the child. She looked at me blankly and said, "butshe said you didn't take her temp!"

Well, a temporal thermometer isn't all that reliable straight off the bus on a sub-zero day, but the bottom line is that if i felt it medically necessary to obtain her temp ASAP, I would've done so. Besides, this kid has "unseen emesis" on a regular basis.

I told the teacher that insisting that I check the kid's temp after I already sent her to class is a lot like a teacher correcting a child's paperwork, only to have the child go to another classroom teacher & have THEM check it, because the first teacher might be wrong.

Whew! Glad there's only 13.5 more weeks of school left....but who (besides ME? ) is counting....

So Sorry, Fetch! That's just ridiculous! There was a time I'd be demanding a sit-down with admin, or go head-to-head with the teacher nurse-wanna-be & flood her inbox with medical articles, etc....but now - I just want to finish out the school year without hitting anybody!!

Oh I've had the same things happen. Just makes you want to beat your head into a wall! :banghead:

I have this teacher that constantly sends kids to interrupt my lunch over stuff that can wait and he knows I'm trying to eat. Well today he had the custodian come and find me in the teacher workroom where I was eating because a kid vomited at lunch. I refused to go. I asked if he could please have the secretary call the kid's mom. They don't need me to do that. Yet other times, like you said, they can't wait to call parent behind your back.

Fetch- just be glad instead of wasting your time with all these kid complaints she's taking care of it. Trust me, one of these days it will come back to bite her in the rear when a parent calls to complain their kid keeps getting sent home needlessly or was more seriously injured than the teacher realized and the principal comes to you and you can smile and say the teacher never let you evaluate any of those situations so you have no idea!

Also understand some teachers just have no backbone so their kids will keep whining over and over until they get the needless ice or a trip to the nurse because they know the teacher will give in. The teacher complains they are driving them crazy because of their constant whining. If they'd just put their foot down they would stop. There are teachers that you know if you see their student it must be major but others you see half the class every day. I kept track one year and notified the principal which teachers were sending tons of kids. The principal was shocked and spoke to those teachers which helped some.

I am not a school nurse, but I'm a parent of two and at their school there isn't always a nurse there and I hate that. I will get calls all the time when the nurse isn't there from my kids teachers telling me I need to pick my kid up because they are sick. I'll ask, are they throwing up? "No" Do they have a fever? "No" is their eye pink and itchy? "No" ....then why are you calling me?

Thanks guys, sleeping on it made me feel a little better. I know what you mean, ilovegiraffes -- summer cannot get here soon enough!! And ABC, you're right about the parent complaint thing. I think I'm feeling even more insecure since it's my first year, and I'm constantly second-guessing myself, I don't need someone else doing it too! But I have an observation scheduled next week so I'll just make sure I'm doing what I need to and let the teacher take care of herself.

I also took someone else's idea for an in-clinic ice pack made from a wet sponge in a ziplock bag - that way for the ones who really don't need ice, I can have them sit with the ice for 5 minutes in here and then go back to class.

fetch, It gets better and you will feel more confident as you get more experience. You will learn which parents are the complainers, which are more laid back and learn to deal with them accordingly. On the teacher front part of the problem may come from past history, maybe the last nurse sent everybody home who complained. I would nicely go to that teacher after the day and let her know why you were not sending so and so home. Reassure her that you are assessing the kids she sends but that it is your job to keep them in school if they are healthy enough to do so. Hang in there. It takes time to build the relationships and the trust.

Specializes in School nursing.

I also took someone else's idea for an in-clinic ice pack made from a wet sponge in a ziplock bag - that way for the ones who really don't need ice, I can have them sit with the ice for 5 minutes in here and then go back to class.

Might have been mine, because I use that for both ice and heat packs, especially since all the nicer ones I have have gone missing or mysteriously get returned to me with a hole in it. I work with MS and HS, if I had 'em stay in my office with an ice pack, they would never leave! Sponges are so cheap and easy, and oddly, I get a much better return rate, so I am never turning back.

Fetch, I hear you. It is my first full school year and I had to have a direct conversation with a teacher questioning my judgement last week. But surprisingly, we came to an understanding after stating each other's point, which I was not expecting. Turns out one of the nurse's before let every kid "hang" in her office for entire class periods and shaking that past experience hasn't been easy.

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