Any advice for a NEW new school nurse?

[MidgekinRN]

Hey everyone! I'm so excited to be joining this community. I start my new job as a school nurse for a Junior High on Friday and while I'm very happy and passionate, I'm also extremely nervous. I graduated with my BSN one year ago and have 6 months to the day of experience in pediatric home care. Most of the posts I've read on here are "new school nurses" but have 10+ years of nursing experience behind them. Does anyone have any advice on things I should focus on reviewing or resources I should look into? Ill have 3 days of district orientation and assigned a mentor which I'm very thankful for but in the grand scheme of things it just seems like so little time to prepare! I hope you all had a great weekend and I can't wait to hear any advice you may have!

[fetch, BSN, RN]

I had only about a year of experience before starting school nursing as well, and the best advice I can give you is that some teachers will sense any insecurities and will try to make you do what THEY want. Know your guidelines for sending kids home and be prepared to defend whatever you do. (I look about 6-10 years younger than my actual age, so I had a lot of older teachers doubting me due to that as well.)

Also - you can't see the future! Sometimes you'll send a kid back to class because they were totally fine in your clinic, and then they'll start spewing. Sometimes you'll send a kid home and the parents will complain that they immediately felt better. You don't have an xray, you don't have a lab to do a workup, you don't have another nurse to look over any patients that you are uneasy about. But you do have your gut, and you should have policies/procedures, and you've got a mentor to give you advice. Use all of them.

Good luck!