High School Nurse

I moved up from Elementary to Middle to High mostly because I was roughly following my own kids. However, I've stayed at the High School as I like dealing with the older kids.

In our district it doesn't matter which school you are in, you work the same days the kids are in the building. Period.

I work in a high school with almost 2,100 students and 250 faculty and staff. I've been here for 13 years and cabn't imagine going any where else. The kids are great, for the most part are pretty independent with disease processes. If they come in dependent, they will leave independent. I am all about getting them ready for real life since I'm not going to college with them. Cons, can be that parents are demanding, drug and alcohol use among the students. and difficult administrators.

I work in a high school with almost 2,100 students and 250 faculty and staff. I've been here for 13 years and cabn't imagine going any where else. The kids are great, for the most part are pretty independent with disease processes. If they come in dependent, they will leave independent. I am all about getting them ready for real life since I'm not going to college with them. Cons, can be that parents are demanding, drug and alcohol use among the students. and difficult administrators.

Wow. Color me impressed. That is a lot on your plate. Are you the only nurse?

I work in a high school with almost 2,100 students and 250 faculty and staff. I've been here for 13 years and cabn't imagine going any where else. The kids are great, for the most part are pretty independent with disease processes. If they come in dependent, they will leave independent. I am all about getting them ready for real life since I'm not going to college with them. Cons, can be that parents are demanding, drug and alcohol use among the students. and difficult administrators.

2,400 here and headed to 2,500 next year. I have a well-trained, competent clinic aide.

Administrators are not too challenging (this set, at least). Parents are. Every 9th grade class that rolls in has a good amount of parents who are still making excuses for sweet baby. There are some kids (a couple of memorable diabetics, one with sickle cell) who will never, ever take charge of their medical condition. You can't care more about this than the parent does.

We still have to screen everyone new to the district for hearing, vision and scoliosis. That's about 200 people, which is better than the average elementary. But that's all on us, and we get no help. The first year I got PTSA to help but it really wasn't needed.

The good news: even though they Google their symptoms, if you keep asking enough questions, you'll usually find out what's wrong. The bad news: when something is wrong, it's far more likely to be really wrong than, say, a first grader with a stomach ache or a 6th grader with a cough.

Also, in many cases you get to watch the growth and development of adolescents into early adulthood, which is darn cool. And despite what we see in the media, teenagers can be damn cool.

You don't actually have to "like" teenagers, but it helps.

Sex education. And a lot of it. Know your state guidelines for sexual health (can you document it, can you not?), referrals, need to/not to involve parents, places students can get tested for STIs. I've also educated about emergency contraception more than I wish I had to in the past couple of years.

And yes, drugs. Alcohol. Vaping is hot right now in my neck of the woods. Have a good assessment tool (tips to some poster here that helped me out with resources!)

And like ruby_jane above, I focus on making them functional adults that can manage their own health care needs in college and beyond. I love that I can be sarcastic with a lot of them as it works well with rapport. And going to graduation to send them into the "real" world always makes me tear up a bit. But I work MS/HS so I see them through puberty to graduation as well.