Freaking out

[Nursemomo3816]

I just took a job as a school nurse, mainly for the better schedule while my son is young. I honestly didn’t know the extent of what I signed up for. I have five schools - 4 elementary and 1 middle school. I have 8 diabetics, countless other SAR, seizure and asthma kids. I probably have over 4,000 kids. I have 4 part time health assistants, they are not trained by me and have a different employer, so they are very territorial of the health rooms. I don’t have a preceptor and only had 3 days of orientation offsite in a classroom. I honestly don’t know what to do. I’m beyond overwhelmed and school hasn’t even started yet. I’m supposed to train 6 uninterested busy secretaries to give emergency meds and insulin. I want to quit! I don’t want to be a jerk by quitting the day before school starts, but this is insane to me. Any advice is appreciated.

[CanIcallmymom, BSN, RN]

2 hours ago, MHDNURSE said:

That is so scary to me. Maybe Massachusetts has just brainwashed me into thinking only a RN is competent enough to draw up and inject insulin and glucagon in an emergency (in schools anyway). I realize in the real world, parents, babysitters, etc. might give both of the things, but in a school, it is all on the nurse and anything that goes wrong falls back on the nurse.

Yes, I can't say I'm super happy about it either. It's definitely unfortunate because the fear of taking off makes it hard... Most schools here don't even have an RN, just a district RN instead over all the schools. Luckily, our district hires mainly just RN's, and it seems to be that many in our state are shifting to that direction. And I do see many districts actually hiring sub RN's, which makes me happy. I have multiple diabetics this year (I think I have eight) with one being newly diagnosed less than a week ago, and one is total care. So it has made me want to push our head nurse to hire an actual nurse substitute or two for our district.

[MrNurse(x2), ADN]

Welcome to school nursing. I don't mean to laugh, but this harkens back to the elitist hospital nurse attitude that school nurses do nothing. Pretty scary being the go to person. Kind of makes you understand a resident in July when everyone is asking them what to do. Every new position has anxiety, you just do one thing after the other and eventually it gets done.

[SchoolNurse91, BSN, RN]

On 9/3/2019 at 2:18 PM, MHDNURSE said:

Am I reading this correctly? That in Oregon you are allowed to administer INSULIN to a student if you are not a nurse? I know my state MA is super strict, but I find it scary that an unlicensed person can give a medication that can easily be given incorrectly. In my district where I work, 99% of the medication errors are with insulin and only nurses are giving it. Scary stuff.

It sounds like a very overwhelming and potentially dangerous situation they have you in- not the norm in most states. I am sorry that your first introduction to school nursing is this situation. It really can be (and usually is) a wonderful specialty.

In our district, we have one RN and two LPNs. We have 9 diabetics in different schools with lunch around the same time. It's impossible for us to be everywhere. Secretaries/teachers have to do it. A lot of schools here don't even have nurses.

[guest83140]

Hi, I think when we accept a job, whether, in the hospital or school district, we definitely have to think about our license and workload. I would speak my concerns and make my decision on safety first.

[CampyCamp, RN]

On 9/4/2019 at 10:45 AM, MHDNURSE said:

That is so scary to me. Maybe Massachusetts has just brainwashed me into thinking only a RN is competent enough to draw up and inject insulin and glucagon in an emergency (in schools anyway). I realize in the real world, parents, babysitters, etc. might give both of the things, but in a school, it is all on the nurse and anything that goes wrong falls back on the nurse.

And in the hospital or nursing home, that's two licensed nurses checking and co-signing and usually an easy to follow sliding scale so I take my time checking my math with correction factors and ratios because there is no safety net. I would not feel safe with a UAP doing it. Not with a student I'm responsible for and not with a child in my family.