Florida students self carrying own otcs

Published

So Broward County High school students can now apparently carry a variety of OTC meds. Thoughts? Do you think other counties and states will follow suit? Do you think that this will cause parents with kids in lower grader to just assume it's ok to have their younger students carry as well?

Broward high school students now can carry select over-the-counter meds - Sun Sentinel

Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

it'snotatumor...love that! Kindergarten Cop is one of my favorite movies. I appreciate what you're saying. You make some good points but I do disagree with ya. The responsible students are never the issue. Allowing kids to carry bottles of pills at school sets the stage for a free and unregulated environment for the dealers, users, and abusers. As stated above if a kid has permission to carry a bottle of "ibuprofen" at school, what gives administration the right to open the container to identify its contents? Parent permission slips to carry medication are an absolute LOL joke, unless the school is going to contact the parent and confirm the legitimacy of the permission slip. Anyway, your post was well written and thank you for offering it. :up:

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Specializes in Med-surg, school nursing..

OldDude...I just love your responses. Always so respectful even when you disagree. A true gentleman.

Now I see why Far loves you so much!

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Specializes in kids.
Bootleg motrin monitor. Hehe.

But seriously, you can put anything into an OTC bottle. Not to mention, what happens when the HS kid with a "super giant headache" takes like 6 Motrin at once from the stash in their locker?

He will be in the health office with a big ol' tummy ache!

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Specializes in kids.
How about the kid who gives out his/her own stash of Motrin to his/her friend with a headache? And now we've got who knows what medications being shared with who knows which kids who have a contraindication to take who knows what meds?

I have kids who are allergic to ibuprofen and acetaminophen, they will never know what they are taking because they are going to ask their friend for an aspirin anyway, not that any of them have probably ever had one.:blink:

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.
OldDude...I just love your responses. Always so respectful even when you disagree. A true gentleman.

Thank You, Sully. You are very kind!

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As an aside comment, school administrators have the right to conduct student searches based on 'reasonable suspicion,' and this right would extend to checking that a student's Ibuprofen really is Ibuprofen if suspicion arose...but I DO agree that schools are a largely unregulated environment with the potential for many problems to arise.

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Specializes in School nursing.
OldDude...I just love your responses. Always so respectful even when you disagree. A true gentleman.

Now I see why Far loves you so much!

We all love OldDude. Most of the time ;).

And it'snotatumor, I see your response and your point, but I also tend to disagree. I teach a drug unit to my 11 graders and I include talking about OTCs, including drug interactions and misuse. More kids than I'd ever wish think it is okay to down 10+ 500 mg acetaminophen a day. They don't read instructions carefully, don't think about interactions with alcohol. Yes, one can argue that there are several adults that exist in the same mindset, but they don't go to my school where I can prevent this.

(Side note: I also teach a College Health 101 seminar to my seniors and talk about OTCs there as well as part of their transition to managing their own health care. The kids seem to dig the info!)

I have standing orders for basic OTCs (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, cough drops), including an allergy protocol for benadryl. Parents can sign off for these medications to be given in my office easily. Kids know this as well. It works very well.

If a student has asthma or a serious allergy, I also have forms and permission for kids to self carry. Yes, maybe that allergy kiddo will self carry benadryl for a skin reaction and take it in the classroom, but that kid will also report right to me for monitoring. Because things can go downhill and most parents and staff I work with would like the school nurse to be in on this if it does.

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I hate the thought of students sharing meds, even OTCs. In my 3 years, I've had one student have a reaction to shared orajel- her gums swelled and blistered; one with a red 40 allergy (took a friends cough drop) and exorcist style vomited for 12 hours and ended up in the ER with dehydration; lastly, one student choked on a tylenol that dad put in his pocket for his headache.

I'm in elementary school and the overwhelming majority of these kids are not responsible enough to self carry even their emergency meds. For example, I found one girl using her inhaler (MD permission to self carry) 8 times in one day, another student used his entire ventolin in under a month(he was not supposed to have it at school, no order. when I did get an order, it said that he was okay to self carry, nope!), and another let her friend check out her Epi-pen and the friend injected it into a chair.

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Specializes in School nursing.
I hate the thought of students sharing meds, even OTCs. In my 3 years, I've had one student have a reaction to shared orajel- her gums swelled and blistered; one with a red 40 allergy (took a friends cough drop) and exorcist style vomited for 12 hours and ended up in the ER with dehydration; lastly, one student choked on a tylenol that dad put in his pocket for his headache.

I'm in elementary school and the overwhelming majority of these kids are not responsible enough to self carry even their emergency meds. For example, I found one girl using her inhaler (MD permission to self carry) 8 times in one day, another student used his entire ventolin in under a month(he was not supposed to have it at school, no order. when I did get an order, it said that he was okay to self carry, nope!), and another let her friend check out her Epi-pen and the friend injected it into a chair.

Where was the adult that didn't see students playing with an Epi-pen in class/lunch? Kid is lucky they didn't inject into themselves or their hand/finger. I had a nursing school instructor tell this great story of how her husband accidentally injected himself with an Epi-pen into his middle finger. She massaged for hours to keep blood flow going as when they headed to ER, his finger was blue.

My self carry form does state that if I find out a student isn't using/taking their medication properly, I can chose to keep the medication in my office. (After which, of course, I'd be calling the parent to try and get the student on the path of proper usage.)

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Where was the adult that didn't see students playing with an Epi-pen in class/lunch? Kid is lucky they didn't inject into themselves or their hand/finger. I had a nursing school instructor tell this great story of how her husband accidentally injected himself with an Epi-pen into his middle finger. She massaged for hours to keep blood flow going as when they headed to ER, his finger was blue.

My self carry form does state that if I find out a student isn't using/taking their medication properly, I can chose to keep the medication in my office. (After which, of course, I'd be calling the parent to try and get the student on the path of proper usage.)

The librarian caught them as it happened, everyone was paired up and spread out doing old-fashioned research.

On a side note, before I started, my former principal injected herself when the nurse passed around the real Epi-pen for everyone to look at; she had to go to the ER.

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Specializes in School nursing.
The librarian caught them as it happened, everyone was paired up and spread out doing old-fashioned research.

On a side note, before I started, my former principal injected herself when the nurse passed around the real Epi-pen for everyone to look at; she had to go to the ER.

This is way I always, always use and pass around the tester unit ;).

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We all love OldDude. Most of the time ;).

And it'snotatumor, I see your response and your point, but I also tend to disagree. I teach a drug unit to my 11 graders and I include talking about OTCs, including drug interactions and misuse. More kids than I'd ever wish think it is okay to down 10+ 500 mg acetaminophen a day. They don't read instructions carefully, don't think about interactions with alcohol. Yes, one can argue that there are several adults that exist in the same mindset, but they don't go to my school where I can prevent this.

(Side note: I also teach a College Health 101 seminar to my seniors and talk about OTCs there as well as part of their transition to managing their own health care. The kids seem to dig the info!)

I have standing orders for basic OTCs (ibuprofen, acetaminophen, cough drops), including an allergy protocol for benadryl. Parents can sign off for these medications to be given in my office easily. Kids know this as well. It works very well.

If a student has asthma or a serious allergy, I also have forms and permission for kids to self carry. Yes, maybe that allergy kiddo will self carry benadryl for a skin reaction and take it in the classroom, but that kid will also report right to me for monitoring. Because things can go downhill and most parents and staff I work with would like the school nurse to be in on this if it does.

Jen-Elizabeth,you obviously come from an educated perspective and I agree with your point about wanting to monitor a student who self-administered Benadryl 100%; it's entirely possible that I'm taking for granted that an allergic student would come tell me about an exposure. In the case that I mentioned in my initial post, the student immediately came to me after she took Benadryl, and I'm thankful for that. I'm new to school nursing and I'm learning, but it seems that my students feel the need to come tell me if they so much as bump their arm or have an eyelash in their eye!

Your rationale for why OTC's should not be allowed in schools are completely valid, bottom line. Potential for harm DOES exist in allowing students to self-medicate, my argument is that making policies prohibiting OTC's in schools in the name of providing a safer environment is akin to making everyone remove their shoes at airport security to protect us from terrorists-they are both illusions of safety.

I think that we can all agree that drug abuse is a complicated issue that is not easily remedied, and one with potentially significant and devastating consequences. I greatly appreciate this forum and I felt comfortable voicing a contrary opinion because of the level of respect and knowledge that I have seen here. Thanks for making this day go by quickly!

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