A school nurse position has fallen into my lap and I'm scared:(

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Specializes in OR.

My head is still spinning :uhoh3:

I went to drop off health forms for my 5 year old going into K and walked out with a 4 month sub school nurse position at the high school. Wow!!! The current nurse is on long-term-leave due to injury so I'll have essentially no in-house orientation. I'm spending one afternoon at her home to go over paperwork, one day at school for a professional development day, and then I jump right and get to it.

I'm scared!! I've spent about a year on a very busy med-surge floor and other than school clinicals that's all the experience I have. It's a 1,000 student jr/sr high school setting. They have 5 well controlled diabetic students on pumps and one child taking anti-seizure meds who hasn't ever had any seizure activity at school. Other than it's a relatively healthy population I'll be working with.

Any advice? Words of wisdom? Or can one of you just come to work with me on my first day and hold my hand? ;)

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You will do great!!! Mass has a gret support network for nurses. http://www.msno.org/ Connect with the state association soon. Make sure you get a mentor through the association and or in the district.

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Get in contact with the other nurses in your district, too. They have been an invaluable resource for me. (I have been a school nurse for a whole 3 days, maybe we can hold each other's hands through email.) :nurse: Linda

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Specializes in OR.

Thanks for your responses. I do have the support of the school nurses at the other two schools in our town. They both have 15+ years experience in school nursing. I also have full telephone support (except when she's heavily medicated after her surgery) from the woman I'm filling in for.

I'm starting to get more excited than scared. Just three more days 'til my first day of school

Hey Linda,

I pm'd you my email address. It might be fun to share our experiences:)

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Specializes in HIV care, med/surge agency.

This is not acute care. That was the hardest adjustment I had to make. Things go right in school nursing most of the time. No codes. The worst thing that regularly happens is parents get too emotional and take it out on the nurse when the kid has a problem. But you'r a mom so you can realate. Have fun!

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Specializes in School Nursing OB-GYN, NICU.

Don't be frightened! Just be a MOM and 99.99999% of the time, you'll make the right decision. Follow your instincts. Again, you WILL be RIGHT! Nurses have this built in ESP that keeps us on the right path. Take each day as it comes, because you'll never know what will walk through the door. As a nurse you are already capable of assessing, adjusting and adapting to any task, right???? We are nurses and WE CAN DO ANYTHING!

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I think you will find this job is a piece of cake. As one poster said earlier, most things go right on the job.

If anything, you might miss hospital nursing and the codes, etc.....

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:nurse:

My head is still spinning :uhoh3:

I went to drop off health forms for my 5 year old going into K and walked out with a 4 month sub school nurse position at the high school. Wow!!! The current nurse is on long-term-leave due to injury so I'll have essentially no in-house orientation. I'm spending one afternoon at her home to go over paperwork, one day at school for a professional development day, and then I jump right and get to it.

I'm scared!! I've spent about a year on a very busy med-surge floor and other than school clinicals that's all the experience I have. It's a 1,000 student jr/sr high school setting. They have 5 well controlled diabetic students on pumps and one child taking anti-seizure meds who hasn't ever had any seizure activity at school. Other than it's a relatively healthy population I'll be working with.

Any advice? Words of wisdom? Or can one of you just come to work with me on my first day and hold my hand? ;)

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:nurse:Now that you have gotten your feet wet for almost two months how do you like it? I was you not that long ago. I just started my third school year and let me tell you time flew. I was working in a nurse residency program as the Health Start Coordinator which is a NJ state based OB program. The family practice I was employed at had 12 faculty physicians and 24 residents. My position was to coordinate all prenatal appt., schedule all testing, prescreen all OB charts with the residents then review with faculty, instruct residents in the prenatal aspect, work hand in hand with the OB faculty doctor, attend high risk pt. meetings, be case manager/insurance approval, and conduct intakes on all new OB patients following up with individual prenatal teaching during each trimester.....along with anything else that came my way...nonstress test etc. etc. etc. So you are probably wondering how school nursing came into the picture. Well it was one Thursday evening when I was working and decided to take a break for dinner. While in the kitchen one of the residents asked me if I knew someone that could babysit for her next week for her 2 year old. There was a change in schedule for her and she needed to find someone for her son. It was the second week of Aug. and was turning out to be an awful summer for me regarding finding someone to watch my 8 year old daugher who get out of school the first week of June. Having to cover three months a year was getting harder and harder. Anyway I replied to the resident, "No I do not know anyone that could help you next week....this summer has been difficult for me in regards to someone watching Caitlin, (Jokingly I said) and I promise you, my next job will be in a school so I do not have to worry about this anymore. Two weeks later my job sort of fell into my lap. A friend of mine saw an ad in the newspaper for a school nurse for a private behavioral school and called me. I sat on the thought for a few days and then began to ask around if anyone knew of the school. I found out that someone that I had worked with years ago was employed there. I called her and found out that this was her job that needed to be filled. She had received her school nurse certification and decided to work closer to home. I faxed my resume and went for an interview two days later (Fri. of Labor Day weekend) and received an offer on Wed. I decided to accept the position even though I was taking a $15,000 cut in pay not including @ 3-4,000 more in OT. I didn't even know if I would like to work with children especially special ed/behavioral. Any way, to make a long story short, I love it. My school is a private school with 48 students ranging from K-12. I also have a BS in Psych so my skills are utilized often. Unfortunately this past summer I was not able to stay home due to finances....so the perk of being home summers did not last long. I need to make a decison this year also about if I am going to stay beyond this year. I will have completed a dual masters in community health and in wellness promotion along with a MS certificate in gerontology. I would love to stay at the school however feel that I will be used with my degress if my salary remains the same. Unfortunately my husband is semi-retired so my income has more impact on our finances than in previous years. Any suggestions? Getting back to you though.....I am sure that you will love school nursing. I am sorry that I did not get into this specialty earlier. Best of luck.

seethelight (by the way, selected the name b/c I have 2 more MS courses to go and finally can see the light!)

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