Blood Drive

KeeperOfTheIceRN, ADN · Nov 12, 2018

Ooooo following!

LikeTheDeadSea, MSN, RN · Nov 12, 2018

I don't at elementary level.

I've never met a High School nurse who liked Blood Drive day. The organization managing is supposed to handle issues, but once they're gone, kids start going down left and right.

Eleven011 · Nov 12, 2018

We have two a year. I'm not involved though, I believe admin takes care of it. I do however, always get 2-3 kids that can't handle the after effects. Always a fun day.

AdobeRN · Nov 12, 2018

I have once - we had a health fair/fall festival for a PTA event - it was ok, turnout was low for the blood drive - I expected it to be since we are elementary level, but the principal at that time requested the blood drive event so I set it up. Besides having poor participation - there really wasn't anything to it - it ran pretty smoothly.

Our local high schools usually do 2/year. Seniors are eligible for a red cord to wear at graduation if they participate.

CanIcallmymom, BSN, RN · Nov 12, 2018

Hey! New school nurse here. I've been lurking but just signed up to talk about this... The blood drive at my school is a big deal, big enough for them to mention it to me when I interviewed for the job. Each year, we host two blood drives so seniors can get a red cord for graduation.

The day of the blood drive was absolute chaos. I was being pulled away from the blood drive (where I had a student who passed out) for another emergency in the clinic (where I had a sub). It was soooo hard to keep track of students signed in/out, but I survived. I made a schedule for students. Carter provided 3 buses to our school that day, and they ask you send a new kid out every 15 minutes to each bus. We had about 85 kids who signed in to donate that day.

Honestly, it's a big pain but it's for a greater good, so I try to look at it that way.

ruby_jane, BSN, RN · Nov 12, 2018

I was never in charge of the thing when I was the high school nurse. I wish I'd been more in charge because around three hours after the blood drive I had to treat the fainters.

If StuCo or whomever is in charge, I would make sure the sponsor knew that these kids need to HYDRATE and have some snacks available.

Good luck!

BunnyBunnyBSNRN, ASN, BSN · Nov 12, 2018

I'm at an elementary school, so I wouldn't have to worry about student's donating.

SaltineQueen · Nov 12, 2018

I'm elementary. I do is send home the forms and load the information into the Red Cross's scheduler when I get things back. I arrange 2-4 volunteers to be here the evening of, but it's happened that they've forgotten. All the volunteers do is check in & help the people get snack afterwards. I live close enough that if I'm not running kids around I do come in to check on them for a bit, but I don't always do that. My custodians are here throughout the evening. A nurse at one of our other elementaries was always there the entire time...she's retired now, so she had a little more flexibility with her time than I do.

LikeTheDeadSea, MSN, RN · Nov 12, 2018

Hey! New school nurse here. I've been lurking but just signed up to talk about this....

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Also, love your username!

CanIcallmymom, BSN, RN · Nov 12, 2018

Thanks! :)

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Nov 13, 2018

Not as a school nurse but in college, I organized 5/year. What was expected of us as the organizers was to staff volunteers and schedule appointments for donors. Volunteers either sat at the registration table and checked people in/gave out numbers or sat at the canteen and made sure people sat down for 15 minutes after donating and ate something. There was a bell to ding if anyone was feeling faint. We typically had 3 day blood drives for 6 hrs/day and got ~100 successful donations/day during the year and a 1 day drive during the summer.