End of year meds?

[chasinRT]

Do you folks send meds home with elementary-age kids at the end of the year? A school-nurse checklist that I got somewhere (new school nurse orientation?) has "send meds home with written parent permission" as one of the close-the-clinic items. I refused last year, as I feel that the last day of a school is no less dangerous than any other day of the year. But the checklist made me wonder what you all do. I did let my intermediate kids take their inhalers. Your thoughts?

[RNlove17]

Nope. I do a printout of all students who have med orders. Then, I go through and determine who has actual meds here at school from that list. I then print out an individual med list for each student, and located which drawer of the med cart their meds are in. A letter goes home to parents saying they need to pick up their kid's meds and any meds not picked up will be thrown away. When a parent comes to pick up, I have them sign the individual med sheet, and also put date/time they picked up. Kids aren't allowed to self carry (except for epipens and inhalers, - it's not different the last day of school. And I have high schoolers too.

[JenTheSchoolRN, BSN, RN]

I've mentioned how I've done it before up thread. This year, however, I have hit the complicated problem of students that are now 18+ years old. These students can sign themselves out of school and are requesting med pick this year themselves.

Have other HS nurses had this issue? Do you still require parent pick-up/disposal? Or do you have the legal-aged student sign the medication return record? I worry about transit of meds, but to be honest, I worry about transit of meds sometimes with parents as well...

[OldDude]

I've mentioned how I've done it before up thread. This year, however, I have hit the complicated problem of students that are now 18+ years old. These students can sign themselves out of school and are requesting med pick this year themselves.

Have other HS nurses had this issue? Do you still require parent pick-up/disposal? Or do you have the legal-aged student sign the medication return record? I worry about transit of meds, but to be honest, I worry about transit of meds sometimes with parents as well...

I talked to our HS nurse. She said if the student is 18 and could walk into a store and purchase the medicine she lets them take that stuff home; prescription meds - no, other than inhalers and self carry epi-pens.