Downtime during school

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I often go to school with my private duty patients. They don't require medical attention when at rest sitting in a classroom doing school work. How do I make good use of this time. I don't want to appear that I'm goofing off but doing nothing at all ( watching kid for hours) makes my mind numb. Any ideas?

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Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Read. Online schoolwork. Knit. Crochet. Needlework.

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Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.

Ask the teacher if there are tasks that you can do for her, like grading math and/or spelling tests.

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When I worked school cases the teachers would get angry if I was not side by side with the child.

It seems most wanted us nurses to actually teach the child.

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I actually disagree with this because, in my experience, when you begin doing these things that are NOT your duty as a favor, it BECOMES your duty regardless of how busy you are. For example, teacher now decides, since the nurse is beginning to grade papers as a favor, she no longer grades them and your patient takes a turn for the worse and on that day, you are so busy with your patient, you don't get to grade the papers. The teacher may actually get upset because you didn't get to the papers losing sight of the actual reason why you are there. Another experience of mine is you are setting the standard for the nurses coming after you. You start doing teacher aide duties, then the nurse after you who refuses may get hostilities because "well, the nurse before you did it" etc. I'm more of a 'by the book' nurse and often conflict with nurses who do unethical or illegal things. An example is I had a patient come to me to give them medication to administer to a resident. The medication was to be given on the next shift. How am I to put my signature on such a medication without verifying it was given? I leave at 11, they "promised" to give it at 12 (an hour after I'm gone) but wanting me to sign for it anyway. When I explained the reason I needed to get a supervisor and the reason I couldn't just hand it over, the first thing the family member stated was "everyone else does it." Turns out everyone else was doing it wrong.

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That's actually not why're you're there (is it?). I'm not sure, I work at night.

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I used to read, check my emails, or write.

The teacher made it plain that my job was for health related issues only, and the teachers assistant was very protective of the girl LOL. (She had known her for many years).

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
Ask the teacher if there are tasks that you can do for her, like grading math and/or spelling tests.

I strongly recommend against this. You are there for a student's health not to assist the teacher. Favors readily become expectations. And that can impact your coworkers when the teacher says but ____ corrects work for me. If you are hired by the school in a dual role it's a bit different

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Specializes in Complex pedi to LTC/SA & now a manager.
That's actually not why're you're there (is it?). I'm not sure, I work at night.

That's one reason why I started nights

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Specializes in Home Health (PDN), Camp Nursing.

Well I have had both types of experience. One case was strictly hands off. I'm there fore care only. The other the kid had lots of need and was physically more demanding. So we traded off a bit. The para was trained to suction and bag so I could use the bathroom. I was trained to hold a book and help with computer setup so she could get stuff done occasionally. We had to work together on some things. We communicated what the expectations were ahead of time and it went well.

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