‘It’s not boo-boos and Band-Aids’: COVID-19 thrust school nurses onto the front line

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Philadelphia Inquirer article highlights how school nurses role has changed...and is needed more today than ever. In many school districts, they monitor covid screening questions and perform contact tracing.   Allnurses School Nursing forum has many posts how COVID-19 has changed their specialty.

Philadelphia Inquirer 12/04/2020

‘It’s not boo-boos and Band-Aids’: COVID-19 thrust school nurses onto the front line

Quote

School nurses have been on the front line since the pandemic closed schools last Spring. Many have helped prepare reopening plans, taken temperatures, enforced social distancing and sanitation rules, ensured mask wearing, distributed lunches, monitored outbreaks, conducted contact tracings, and consulted with local health departments....

...Often spread thin, each school day they are assessing and addressing students needs from afar — monitoring spikes in student hospitalizations; managing mental health needs; identifying children who lack food and vaccinations and looking for signs of abuse....

 

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

It's never been just "boo-boos and Band-aids;"  I'm glad school nurses are at least now getting some recognition for the extremely hard and complex work they do.

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

1 hour ago, JadedCPN said:

It's never been just "boo-boos and Band-aids;"  I'm glad school nurses are at least now getting some recognition for the extremely hard and complex work they do.

Thank You!!  It truly has been a remarkable time as a school nurse. Working from home last Spring brought challenges, but I was able to do a lot of planning for this year. I could never have planned for what it has been.

We have been F2F since Sept, with minimal disruption, until just before Thanksgiving, then it hit the fan!! The state contact tracers are so busy we are doing it all. 

I feel like my head is a revolving calendar! We got our cases traced and then extended our break thru 12/7...

teachers are not happy...

parents are not happy...

AND we are still getting other things done like case managing 504, chasing immunizations, getting food for our food-insecure families, supporting another family with a child that has a critical illness, dealing with a first time seizure, calling on all the absences to see if they warrant referral for testing...

IT.NEVER.ENDS!

I so look forward to the holiday break, even though it won't be what I choose, I am finally feeling like there is a light at the end of the tunnel that is not a train!

Hang in there my school nurses peeps! We got this!