Interview for School RN this week!

[JG1977]

Hello! I am new here and seeking some friendly/helpful advice. I have an upcoming interview for a public school RN and I know there are threads out there with "possible questions" that I have been reviewing all night. I do not necessarily have PEDs experience, although I did work in the public schools many years ago in a different role (other than RN). I also have 2 children (the oldest with medical and emotional/behavioral struggles and anaphylactic reaction to some foods). I had (1) year of cardiac floor experience, and 5 years of adult specialty experience (now more phone triage and less patient contact). I would love to make this transition into the schools but had 2 questions.

1) How important is it to have the certification (school RN). Did you find it helpful for your first school RN position?

2) A little more insight into the triage questions and solid sounding answers.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you all! (And as a mom, thank you for all that you do in the schools!!!)

[GdBSN, RN]

Check your state requirements. Some states don't require a certification. One example of a triage question I had was: You have a severe asthmatic come in to your office, followed by a diabetic student, you are being called to the playground for a possible playground injury, and a student with a bloody nose walks in your office...what would you do?

[tippeny]

Congrats on the interview! I went for a school RN interview a little over a week ago and have a sight visit/2nd interview this week. :-)

The questions they asked me (I'm in MD) weren't horrible, so don't stress too much. The big one was a scenario: just me and a health tech in the school and the health room gets a call about an injury on the play ground, a type I diabetic child just walked into the health room with signs of hypoglycemia, and another child is seizing in the classroom. What do you do?

Other questions had to do with general work stuff and how you handle conflicts with coworkers. Say, your health assistant isn't following protocol. How do you handle it? Tell us about a conflict on the job and how you handled that situation. Tell us about a situation at work that you were particularly proud of. Tell us about instances where you were in charge of others or had to delegate. That sort of stuff!

I also had to write a brief essay about what you think the nursing process is and how it relates to school nursing. (I'm a dork and really didn't mind that!) And there was a brief calculation of insulin for type I diabetic child. Not rocket science- there was a list of carbs eaten and the dosing range for grams of carbs.

Oh, and btw, no certification here. I've been an Oncology RN (adult, inpatient) for 2 1/2 years.

Good luck this week! You'll be great!

[JG1977]

These are the questions I am talking about! Of course most life threatening first. I am assuming these are meant if you were alone. I'm not sure of the best answer for these and what they are exactly looking for.