Like taking candy from a baby...

[joy09]

I want to thank you all for great advice and support. I will be through my first year at this school system and I am coming around to accepting things as they are and doing what I can every day to make a difference. I wrote before about my coworker who draws kids out of the classroom like bees to honey. Yesterday, her room took in 111 visits! This is a school that should have 65 or so.

Just wanted to share that she now is handing out peppermint candy to the kids with belly aches! 8 kids have cough drop bags with their names on it and one of the frequent flyers (comes all the time with her buddy, another ff) has her own ice bags!

This woman is the toast of the elementary school. They love her but she is running her coworkers into the ground. She has no intention of changing things even though she says she goes home crying some days because of the pace!

I have come around to having compassion for her as well. It's all about the TLC.

Have a great week!

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

That's a lot of visits! Where I sub, if I see even 65 kids total (including meds, ice packs, etc), by the end of the day my hair is sticking straight up, my pen has no ink, and I'm mumbling incoherently.

It's a tough question: At what point does this nurse just make things harder on herself?

Reminds me of what I was told when I started floating to ER: "Stop being so nice to them. It just makes them come back." :)

[joy09]

Well, that's exactly what I have been struggling (and so have the subs) to get across to this woman. While we really love the kids and want to enjoy them and they us, we have an obligation to temper it with common sense about what is managable and what our priorities are.

I am a float so when I go into that school, I have made it known that I will not be able to meet the standard of assessment or documentation that is expected due to the volume. I have discussed it with this nurse, the principal and the superintendant. No sub or float wants to be there, period.

Anyway, I have come to realize there is something wrong there and I have compassion for someone who literally is unable to say no and has almost an obsession for drawing people in to care for. Being nice is a good feeling. Doing a good job is always more than being nice. It is helping people help themselves, creating a healthy environment with an attitude of health, not neediness. There seems no end in site. Only time will tell the outcome. I am not depending on getting my letter to come back next year. It's been a tough year for the whole department.

[zenman]

Have you thought about getting the school counselors involved? We do for those kids who seem to visit too often. Remind the nurse that kids are in school for education and they will be dumb***es if they hang around her too long, lol!