Just need a safe space to place my frustration and growing sadness.
This week is teacher's appreciation week, and I get it... teachers greatly outnumber us in the building. Teachers are getting lunches, picnics, gifts, etc. every day this week. But Nurse's week is the 6th-12th this year and NO mention of it has been made at my campus. Counselors got their week, assistant principals had treats and gifts catered in for them, even school clerks got their appreciation day. But me, the nurse? I'm a background character I suppose.
The cherry-- a counselor just sent a school-wide email that reads: "Not only are you the teacher, but the co-parent, the parent, the nurse, the confidant, the advisor, and so much more."
That's funny... I don't recall any of our teachers having any inkling of knowledge about the pandemic we weathered this year; the one that school nurses were at the forefront of. I didn't see any teachers providing sick care to kids throughout the year.
I've been subtly trying to remind a few administrators that our week is nearly here, not in a way that says "hey don't forget to recognize me!" because I think that's tacky, but wow I just wish someone would say "thank you" especially after the year we've had. ?
Is anyone else's school doing anything to celebrate you this week?
While I understand where you're coming from, it doesn't sound like you've spent time as a school nurse specifically. We are usually the only medical professional in a building with sometimes hundreds of other adults. Talk about feeling like the odd person out. We sometimes have days where we don't see or talk to these other adults at all. We do not have nursing committees who exist simply to lift us up as hospitals do, nor do we as individuals have the time to put up displays. And with what money? If you spend time on this sub-forum, some health offices are given budgets that are less than a monthly car payment, which is expected to serve an entire student population, FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR! The space you suggest we should request to use is not for us to use, because it is displaying work done by the students. If anything, we could do something in our offices, but as I said before, unless the teachers need tylenol, we often don't see them. We are just so low on the priority list, that I believe what some of the others are trying to say is that why should we even consider the effort?? We put in 110% every day and get no recognition. In what world would we add another thing to our plate which might garner 1 or 2 people thanking us as they pass by in the hallway...
I didn't see an assistant principal make a flyer about the importance of writing discipline referrals and sitting in on observation classes to get their Tiff's Treats.
What nursing provides is a positive thing, not discipline. Why would a asst. principal make a poster about how good they are on writing disipline referrels.? Be real.
3 hours ago, k1p1ssk said:
While I understand where you're coming from, it doesn't sound like you've spent time as a school nurse specifically.
I was the sole nurse for a Boys and Girls Club in the 70s. I made the most of the job, going into the different areas of the club to offer basic health assessment and dental assessment, did presentations as well as being there for the outcome of fights and other physical altercations.
3 hours ago, Mavnurse17 said:
We do not have nursing committees who exist simply to lift us up as hospitals do, nor do we as individuals have the time to put up displays
I think if you read the posts here you will find that the hospitals do the least possible for nurse's week. I think we had an ice cream truck come once.
Putting up displays may be time consuming at first but when you use the same pictures etc. every year it gets so much easier. Just add one or two new things to refresh the display.Ask a teacher to help.
3 hours ago, k1p1ssk said:
The space you suggest we should request to use is not for us to use, because it is displaying work done by the students.
I guess you haven't asked for a bulletin board. Do you have a DOOR to put graphics on?
3 hours ago, Mavnurse17 said:
And pfft, they think I'm going to get an entire bulletin board ?
You do not need a whole bulletin board.
3 hours ago, NutmeggeRN said:
We are just so low on the priority list, that I believe what some of the others are trying to say is that why should we even consider the effort??
No effort = no recognition.
3 hours ago, NutmeggeRN said:
In what world would we add another thing to our plate which might garner 1 or 2 people thanking us as they pass by in the hallway...
1 or 2 will add up to more. I really don't understand the thinking that someone should recognize me for my efforts when they probably do not understand all the dimensions of my role...especially in the last 2 years.
3 hours ago, Mavnurse17 said:
Thanks for patronizing me and the point of my OP.
This was never meant to be patronizing. I started out just trying to reflect back what I was reading and show how you could help others recognize your importance to the organization. From your answers I learned you do not want to put out the effort to educate your peers and your peers are not going to recognize you if they don't know all the dimensions of your profession beyond
@londonflo appreciate the sentiment, however school nursing is different. Stick to the oncology lane. I was a pediatric oncology nurse before school nursing, I know the stress. You may have a nurse's station to expound your advice to others. For school nurses THIS is our nurse's station and we will protect our thoughts, as negative as they seem to you, and protect our own. Jumping specialties and commenting on topics that you might not understand will only lead to resentment from those groups.
Putting up displays may be time consuming at first but when you use the same pictures etc. every year it gets so much easier. Just add one or two new things to refresh the display. Ask a teacher to help.
Haha! Now that last sentence made me laugh out loud.
And I rarely have enough time to put up a display between nurse's visits and running my weekly COVID on site testing program for students and staff this year.
Haha! Now that last sentence made me laugh out loud.
And I rarely have enough time to put up a display between nurse's visits and running my weekly COVID on site testing program for students and staff this year.
Not to mention trying to do state screenings on students in and out of virtual learning.
From your answers I learned you do not want to put out the effort to educate your peers and your peers are not going to recognize you if they don't know all the dimensions of your profession beyond
Teachers don't educate us one every dimension of their profession. Using that logic, why should we recognize Teacher's Appreciation week?
I'm having trouble understanding why you believe it's impossible to celebrate someone unless you know what their specific job functions are. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that school nurses were at the forefront of school health in light of Covid this school year. Some of us not only processed student cases but staff cases as well, making for a 2500+ person case load. For one person! Is that not reason enough to say "thank you for what you do"? Are you being intentionally dense?
In the past, as I mentioned, I was a nurse for a non for profit entity.
44 minutes ago, tining said:
@londonflo appreciate the sentiment, however school nursing is different. Stick to the oncology lane. I was a pediatric oncology nurse before school nursing, I know the stress. You may have a nurse's station to expound your advice to others.
My last position was as a nursing faculty...being neither fish nor fowl, I never expounded my advice to others but was a good listener. There are many dimensions of nursing and some parts of nursing are the same in wherever your work.
londonflo, I think school nurses get lumped in with the teachers for lower pay and other less than stellar perks of the job in education. At our "nurse's station" we are just venting about not getting the same kind recognition. We are not looking for ideas on how to fix it, just validating our left out thoughts with others who are feeling the same.
Thanks for your input. When/if we have the time, energy or means, we will have some good suggestions on how to make ourselves more visible.
When/if we have the time, energy or means, we will have some good suggestions on how to make ourselves more visible.
Thank you so much for your kind message. True, I was just trying to give some ideas to strengthen the message of the complicated role of the school nurse. My daughter is a school social worker. I got a poster about her role that she put up on her door. She said while not everyone looked at it and acknowledged it, at least some teachers/adminstrators said something about her job.
I am pretty sure everyone was so busy dealing with the fallout of covid we forgot to think about our co-workers who were in the trenches with us.
Someone did leave a card in my mailbox, just signed "from all your coworkers" basically. Not totally sure what they did for the teachers.
I have mixed feelings about this kind of stuff - most places where I've worked, the 'recognition' is so patronizing and bordering on sexist. The classic coffee cup or water bottle or post-it notes with the message in swooshy fonts and pink hearts, "You're so compassionate/giving/selfless/kind. You're a special angel on earth!" Uggggh.
I'd like a Starbucks card and a mug extolling my professional knowledge of infection control, harm reduction, motivational interviewing, crisis intervention, public speaking, chronic disease management, and improvised first aid ?
This. I wish I could like it a thousand times. I'm not a school nurse but I totally agree!
NutmeggeRN, BSN
2 Articles; 4,743 Posts
This, eight days a week!!!!!