Going from school nursing into hospital nursing??

[WDW1971]

I graduated with a BSN in 1995 and went straight into a position as a school nurse in Dallas. School nursing was something that I had wanted to do since I had started nursing school.

Over a period of 7 years I worked for 3 different school districts, and I loved my 2nd job which was in a terrific high school. My husband and I moved in 1999, and my most recent full-time job was in a 4th-6th grade school. After 3 years of working there full-time, I grew quite bored with the common needs of elementary school age children (mostly "boo-boo" care). I resigned from full-time work 3 years ago. For the last 3 years I have been occasionally substituting and volunteering for the nurses in the school district where I used to work. The problem with substituting for school districts is that it only pays around $80 a day - less than half of what I was making full-time. I still have a place for school nursing in my heart, and if I could find a job-share situation or a full-time high school position I might decide to re-enter that profession. But I was so bored sitting in an elementary school clinic for 3 years, even on busy days.

After 10 years I am still trying to decide if nursing was even the right career choice for me. In some ways I feel like such a failure because since graduating from nursing school, I have never really learned to do the things that people tend to think all nurses can do. I am mostly talking about some of the hands-on skills that I never needed to use in the school setting, and never really learned to do in BSN school. I think I might actually enjoy the faster pace of hospital work, and also the flexibility of scheduling. But because I never developed some of the basic hands-on nursing skills, I am petrified of going back into the hospitals 10 years after graduating from a nursing school that was VERY theory-based. No offense to LVNs, but I kind of feel like I need to go to LVN school first .

I am just curious to hear from other nurses. Has anyone ever been in this situation, or seen another nurse go from years of non-hospital work into the hospital setting? Especially someone who never really had much hands-on hospital experience to begin with?

[WDW1971]

Wow! $200. Sounds like it would be a VERY helpful class, though. Okay - what is JPH short for?

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Wow - JPH is an embarassing typo for JPS! JPS hospital here in Fort Worth - sorry about that!

[WDW1971]

No problem :). I know all kinds of internet abbreviations, but I'm not familiar enough with the many hospitals in the DFW area to have known whether JPH was a hospital or not. And I decided it was quicker just to ask :).

[guest83140]

Hello,

I was thinking about going from the hospital into school nursing. I am tired of the stress and short staffing issues not to mention the scary part of rushing and getting stuck with needles from starting ivs and drawing blood. I would say that it would probably take about 2-3 months of good practice to feel confident doing the above and a mentor to learn the other nursing skills for about a year. But you never know it all as there will be situations that overlap or happen simultaneously.

I ran into this website by surfing for a school nurse job. I want to come home before dark where I can greet the family, have dinner ready and do personal business and emails. I felt so guilty when the hosiptal would call on my off day begging for help or after being so rushed with ER admits and being charge that I worried about lawsuits when I cooked. Or being exposed to MRSA and TB pts constantly and not exposing my family. We may be at different ends of the rope in nursing and probably in age. I am 47 and I don't want all that ER or Med-Surg excitement and I would gladly trade for the school setting. I want it so badly that I finished a teacher prep program to teach elementary until I can find a school nurse position. Any leads on openings? Also tell me more about your day to day ups and downs. I will gladly share mine also. I currently work at the hospital clinic across the street with mostly OB pts doing many minor surgical procedures 8:30-5:30 p.m. M-F weekends and Holidays off. It's stress to me and the hours are a little too late. I have 2 boys, ages 10 and 12 and I desire to help them with homework after school. :)

[WDW1971]

Glolilly - I completely understand your desire for a change. It sounds like school nursing would be a great fit for you. I am 34 and married, but we don't have kids and don't know if we even want to have any. Working evenings actually sounds good to me because I don't like getting up early and working the same schedule day after day. I guess we are kind of at opposite places in our careers.

The school nurse schedule would be perfect for you. And it really is a great job. In fact, there is a good chance that I might end up doing it again because the hours and weeks off are great. Also it is nice to develop longer-term relationships with your clients (the students and staff) instead of just seeing them for a few minutes or hours, then never seeing them again.

Around here it seems that one of the best ways to get involved in school nursing is to get in there and substitute for school nurses. A lot of times when a district has a nursing position come open, they will hire one of their substitutes full-time. The pay for substituting is not great (and is worse in some places than others), but if you can afford the drastic pay cut, it could be your way into finding your own school nursing job. Around here, a school full-time nurse makes the same pay as a teacher. Most likely, though, if you are hired as a full-time employee you will start at the first pay level for that school district. I have not seen any district that credits people for years they have worked in non-educational jobs. I don't know where you live, but around here that starting pay would be somewhere between $30 and $40K a year depending on the district. It is actually not bad money at all for nurses. For teachers, however, who must grade papers, make bulletin boards, make tests, go to all kinds of evening stuff, etc., the "hourly" rate is not nearly as good as it is for the nurse.

Now as far as what a school nurse does. . . Everyone always thinks about the part of the job where kids come in for injuries, illnesses, or medicines. And in big schools, that stuff will keep you hopping. But some people thinks that is all a school nurse does. However, keeping track of immunizations is another big part, as is vision, hearing, dental, and

scoliosis screening. Another big part is more geared toward counseling. I found that probably half of what I did with high school students was just simply talking to them (and that is why I REALLY liked that job). LOTS of kids need attention or have non-health-related problems they need help with, and for some reason the nurse is a person that most students are comfortable with. Another thing many elementary nurses do is go into the classrooms occasionally to do some health teaching (hygiene, growth & development, etc). I have also been on attendance committees, building committees, and other various non-nursing-related teams. I also was the one who found dry clothes for kids on rainy days, fixed broken glasses and zippers, helped people with their computers, and performed other handy-man kind of things.

Depending on the school and your co-workers, it can be a very fun job. Based on what you have said about yourself, I think it might be a great fit for you :). Heck - based on what I've said it sounds like it would be a great fit for me :chuckle. But if I decide to stick with it, I need to find a junior high or high school for a change. I am more of a "big kids" kind of person.

[tridil2000, MSN, RN]

I don't know where you live, but around here that starting pay would be somewhere between $30 and $40K a year depending on the district. It is actually not bad money at all for nurses. For teachers, however, who must grade papers, make bulletin boards, make tests, go to all kinds of evening stuff, etc., the "hourly" rate is not nearly as good as it is for the nurse.

i disagree.

your knowledge and skills and are just as important as the teacher's and you deserve every penny you get, if not more.

don't sell yourself short...and don't demean your skills and knowledge by ever thinking the teachers do more.

it's different work. that's all.

[WDW1971]

I didn't intend to demean the work of the school nurse. I meant that simply as factual information, and not as a slight toward school nursing. I was simply stating that in general a school nurse ends up devoting fewer hours a week to the job than many teachers do, but for the same amount of money. On most days I got there at 7:45 and left at 3:45, and I never took any work home. It would be unusual for a teacher to be able to do that every day.

As far as the value of the job is concerned, when a school nurse's job gets serious (and those scary days definitely happen!), it is usually much more of an acute crisis than anything a teacher will ever encounter. However, a school could not exist without teachers. Many schools exist without a nurse .

[nitengale75]

I don't know where you live, but around here that starting pay would be somewhere between $30 and $40K a year depending on the district. It is actually not bad money at all for nurses. For teachers, however, who must grade papers, make bulletin boards, make tests, go to all kinds of evening stuff, etc., the "hourly" rate is not nearly as good as it is for the nurse.

i disagree.

your knowledge and skills and are just as important as the teacher's and you deserve every penny you get, if not more.

don't sell yourself short...and don't demean your skills and knowledge by ever thinking the teachers do more.

it's different work. that's all.

Thank you so much for this post. The first 15 years of my nursing were spent in the hospital. The last 15 have been as a school nurse. I have been fortunate to work for a district which compensated me for 10 years of nursing experience when they hired me. I have worked on my education and achieved a M.Ed. Now, I make 60K a year with the potential of making more if I add more college credits to my resume. But I feel I work hard for the money and put in many hours past "contractual time". I attend IEP's for the special needs students and write care plans for health problems. Young people today are on many medications and if I do not know what they are I have to look them up or call the pharmacy. I have found medication errors on the part of the pharmacy and the parents. I also attend many functions at my high school and make myself visible to show the students I care about them. This helps when I feel like I am only seeing my "frequent fliers". I also work with the staff on health issues and promoting healthy choices. And you are so right when you say "don't sell yourself short". As nurses, we are very fortunate to have many specialities to find our niche. I just wanted to thank the above poster for saying not to demean ourselves thinking teachers do more than school nurses. It is nice to be appreciated.

[WDW1971]

I have been fortunate to work for a district which compensated me for 10 years of nursing experience when they hired me. I have worked on my education and achieved a M.Ed. Now, I make 60K a year with the potential of making more if I add more college credits to my resume.

Wow. That is great. The majority of school districts here, as far as I know, make every new professional staff member (and probably paraprofessional, too) start at square one on the pay scale no matter how many years of experience the person has outside of education. That is wonderful that your district credited you with some of your years of valuable nursing experience.