Lunchtime ??

In my district, in upstate NY, the school nurses get 1/2 hour lunch but are PAID for lunch because they recognize that we do need to be on duty. The teachers and secretaries usually respect that it's my lunchtime but of course there's always the emergency injury or illness.

Lunch? What is a lunch? What is an uninterrupted lunch? Although I work with another nurse, we rarely leave the office to "have lunch." Our lunch usually consists of eating at our desks while administering meds or assisting students as needed.

As you guys know, lunch time is our peak business time. We usually start eating our lunch about 10:30 am. This is after preparing meds and before the crowd starts. On the rare occasion I lunch with other staff, I will go into the staff lounge around 12:15 pm.

Although I would like to take a lunch and gossip with other staff, it just isn't feasible with our schedule. Once we get done with lunch meds, we clean up and get the meds ready for another day. We give close to 80 meds per day out, so it takes awhile.

Lunch or no lunch, I still love my job!

Because we are on the teacher's contract, I get a scheduled, 45 min., covered lunch period and prep period every day. I orient the covering teacher to the way the office works in the beginning of the year and they only page me in cases of emergencies (major injury, migraine h/a medication, head injury, etc.). I schedule my meds around my lunch. The covering teacher can opt out of being assigned to my office if they are really uncomfortable, but most don't. I love lunching with the teachers! During my prep, I work in the office, so I'm always there if they have a question or problem. The administration in my building is very good to me (as they should be, LOL!) but some of the other nurses in my district aren't as lucky.