Leaving school Nursing thoughts...

Nurse_JackieVA, BSN, RN · Apr 7, 2017

I've been thinking about leaving the specialty for some time now - I love the kids, the staff is great, and the schedule is awesome but I'm missing the hospital, being able to "fix" things or call the pharmacy when I need a med. I just feel like my hands are constantly tied and I'm literally just putting band aids over wounds.

No peds for me, going into CVICU.

Maybe trying getting a per diem job just to keep your skills up and a little reminder why you love school nursing?

OldDude · Apr 7, 2017

Think about how you ended up with your current job. Is it a result of you running "away" from something or running "toward" something? Obviously you're on a continuous loop of contemplation that only leads you back to the beginning of trying to decide; like the movie Groundhog Day. So...based on what I'm hearing...my advise is to stay with school nursing but find some kind of prn nurse position to help your wheels keep traction when you have extended periods off during the summer. Plus supplementing a prn position during the school year will be inconvenient enough to keep that selective memory of fondness from the good 'ol hospital days in perspective.

palli · Apr 7, 2017

I took a per diem forensics position because I really want to feel like a nurse. Not just a person with a nursing license and degree doing a lot of paperwork and getting questioned by parents. It helps to balance the secretary part in me with being a nurse.

MrNurse(x2), ADN · Apr 7, 2017

Maybe it is because I have decades of hospital experience that I can't relate to your feelings. I would truly love to do this for the rest of my career. Hospitals have become customer driven and ungrateful towards staff. I feel more appreciation from my students than patients, and my clientele was better than the whole Baltimore metro area. Hope you find what you are looking for, that is what is so great about nursing, there is always another option.

NurseBeans, BSN, RN, EMT-B · Apr 7, 2017

Ok, so I know this wouldn't suit everyone, but I am starting to volunteer for my local ambulance company. It doesn't pay but I sure get to use skills that have expired as I sit in my school nurse's office taking temps and washing soiled pants...I get to talk to adults and yes, the clientele is often just as bad as the worst students but it's my kind of fun.

I am looking at military retirement for my reserves career in the next few years and this would fill the hole that will leave in my heart/soul/calendar (but not my paycheck, alas).

momto5RN · Apr 7, 2017

I get this. I just had this thought last night and it was because of the second grade kid's mom who sent me an old inhaler and his asthma was acting up and she didn't seem to care (see my other post, she brought in a new one today!!). Also, I am still new to nursing. My only other experience so far is nights on a sub acute floor. I have tried so many freaking times to get into the hospitals. No one will take me in. I have no idea why because they pretty much took all of my former classmates and we all have ADNs. Most are matriculated in a BSN program so maybe that is why.

Last year, I kept sub acute as per diem and worked Friday and Saturday nights. I felt it was important to keep up with my nursing skills. I was working 7 days a week. I was exhausted and I have a lot of children at home. When I go on interviews they don't seem interested or impressed that I worked nights as the sole nurse taking care of up to 40 patients on a given day. That was hard and scary. I learned incredible time management, prioritization, and delegation skills. I'm nervous no hospital will even look at me after being in the school setting. On one interview I went on, the interviewer asked, why would you want to leave a lovely job like school nursing. I do love it but I need better insurance, better pay, tuition reimbursement and I want to learn more skills and hone in on my critical thinking skills. I will be here for another year. After that, time will tell. Sorry for the ramble. Good luck!

WineRN · Apr 7, 2017

Hospitals have become customer driven and ungrateful towards staff.

This is why I left acute care so quickly. I was driving to my mom's near chicago and I saw a billboard that said "Your private room is ready" and there was white gloved hand holding a stethoscope. It was an advertisement for the hospital I used to work at. It made me SO MAD.

But tangent aside, I love school nursing so far but I am nervous about the summer. I'm the kind of person who NEEDS to be busy.

audreysmagic, RN · Apr 8, 2017

This is why I left acute care so quickly. I was driving to my mom's near chicago and I saw a billboard that said "Your private room is ready" and there was white gloved hand holding a stethoscope. It was an advertisement for the hospital I used to work at. It made me SO MAD.
But tangent aside, I love school nursing so far but I am nervous about the summer. I'm the kind of person who NEEDS to be busy.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one irrationally angry at this billboard. Or the ones that list your current ER wait time, like...that's assuming no one's dying before you.

I left school nursing because mine was a contract position so summers and vacations were not paid, and I had no vacation time. I had tried picking up agency during the summer, with limited success. Back in acute-care, and BOY DO I MISS SCHOOLS. All the same annoyances with parents are here, because I work with peds, and it's peds psych so even more so, honestly. The customer-service model burns me out. I love the actual work I'm doing, but it's the "everything else" that weighs on me often. If I could pay my bills in a steady position, I'd go back to home care peds or schools in a heartbeat. Sure, the hospital is more money, but as a co-worker of mine is fond of saying, "Not all money is good money."

it'snotatumor · Apr 10, 2017

Kudos to you for sticking it out for a second year! My quick take is that you are putting the weight of the world on your shoulders; I think most nurses are "guilty" of this from time to time. While your compassion is probably one of the reasons that I bet you are a fantastic school nurse, it can also make you feel drained when you are constantly faced with situations you cannot control. I'm not sure about your school setting, but I am guessing that we deal with similar issues/families at times-l am the school nurse for 7th and 8th grade jr. high in a rural area that serves predominantly low socio-economic students. I am in my second year of school nursing and I have already seen some incredibly tough situations here and it's hard to not feel disillusioned. What has helped me is to find the kids and situations that I CAN help in some way. Here are a few examples:

1. I have a lot of legitimately hungry kids, so I've decided that I will always supply healthy snacks in my office. Thankfully, kids have

not abused this yet.

2. I have an anxiety disorder, so I can spot the "I'm feeling stressed, but I don't know how to talk about it," symptoms from a mile

away. We are fortunate to have great counselors here, but we all know that nurses are somehow more approachable sometimes and I use those situations to the fullest. Using judicious disclosure, I can connect with a kid who feels completely alone and stuck in the

world and teach him or her coping mechanisms in real time. This alone fills me with purpose and meaning(Writing that somewhat

surprises me because I'm a pretty cynical gal, so thank you for giving me a chance to self-reflect).

3. Then, for the kids that really need an advocate because they are not getting the glasses or medication that they need, I allow myself

to be angry momentarily and then I file a medical neglect case with child services. As an aside, I find that I'm extra kind to even my

most annoying FF's on the days that I have to make these calls.

As far as legality concerns, as a nurse, a governing body has already deemed your judgement to be sound enough to be responsible for people's lives in even the most acute settings possible. With that in mind, remember that school nurses have students, not patients, and the majority of the school population is young and healthy. Of course there are going to be dire emergency situations that you will face, but they are hopefully few and far between. When in doubt, error on the side of safety and call parents, administrators,or ambulances as you see fit. It is not within our scope to diagnose, plain and simple, and I think a little bit of fear of the "what ifs" keeps us sharp. For me, coming from 13 years of Peds/PICU hospital background, I think 1 kid in 5 either has cancer or will need to be intubated in the next 30 minutes, so I'm still working on changing my mindset too;)

And speaking of hospitals, all of my nursing friends that work in hospitals (except for my CRNA husband who loves what he does), HATE their jobs. I worked in a bigger city before this, and my nursing friends from various units have the same bad things to say that my nursing friends here in a rural setting do. Even my friends who have advanced practice degrees or work outside of hospitals in different capacities are not happy. The state of healthcare has changed, and certainly not for the better. As school nurses, we are as far removed as we can be from all of the bureaucracy, with the exception of assisting with a 504 plan here and there. I'll take that over yet another mandatory meeting over some new asinine policy any day.

Wishing you the best of luck on your journey!

KKEGS, MSN, RN · Apr 10, 2017

This is my first year in the schools and I very often think about leaving and going back to the hospital as well because I HATE the paperwork, putting out fires constantly, trying to track down unresponsive parents, being responsible for the health and safety of 1500+ students which often feels like too much for one person, etc.

I signed with a staffing agency a couple of months into the school year and started picking up shifts a couple of times a month in NICU which is where I worked before I took this school nurse job. I have found that it's a nice balance for me to have the fantastic school nurse schedule with the opportunity to actually feel like a nurse once in a while and be around other medical people so I don't feel so lonely and isolated. The things that I began to hate in the hospital (mostly the poor management and micromanaging the nurses) are still there but I feel shielded from all the hospital politics and B.S. since I am an outsider. I love most of the kids and teachers and staff and the other nurses in my district are so supportive and helpful but I don't see myself doing this school nurse thing forever. I'm going to stick it out at least one more year and see if it's better. Right now this schedule is so wonderful for me and my family. That's why I'm staying. My husband and kids really don't want me to go back to the hospital schedule (rotating day/night, holidays, every other weekends that left me chronically exhausted and cranky) but we'll see what happens.

FloridaBeagle · Apr 12, 2017

Maybe you need a more high-needs school. I am challenged by my students. I have dozens of special education students that have seizures in school, students who need tube feedings, students with trachs, diabetics, students passing out from panic attacks, and of course there's the usual playground injuries. It's never boring and I am always triaging. Spring has sprung which means it's asthma assessment season!

Sometimes I miss the more challenging aspects of hospital nursing, but I just remind myself of the loooooonnnnggg 12 hour overnight shifts, difficulty planning vacation times, calling codes and rapid responses, getting floated to units where I was clueless and useless, and the lousy treatment from patients (one called me waitress. Seriously! I'll never forget it). I don't miss it badly enough to deal with all that again!