Medical Assistant as school nurse

Farawyn · Mar 1, 2016

The biggest issue to me is parents may mistakenly think there is a registered nurse at their school when instead there is only a trained pill passer. Giving scheduled or even prn home meds doesn't alarm me. Having nobody who can assess, recognize, and react appropriately to health emergencies is an issue.

Yep. parents assume the person in the Nurse's office is, well, a nurse. Even if the person does not pass themselves off as one. They assume a certain knowledge base.

It's really disingenuous.

Reds5588, BSN · Mar 1, 2016

I was a "medication administration technician" with a CNA license before I went to nursing school. This was in an assisted living community and It was a great experience for me, I made a point to look up and try to understand every med I was giving, which helped a lot with my future pharmacology courses. However, I now recognize my assessment skills were extremely lacking back then. I also agree that the general public is often unaware of this legal loop hole, and many families and even physicians were surprised when I had to frequently correct them of what my title was.

Now, as the mother of a 7 year old daughter with type 1 diabetes, I get frustrated with the lack of nurses at schools. We live in a major east coast city, with terrible public schools (also, with MA instead of RNs). So, my daughter goes to catholic school, and they only have an RN once a week. Our only solution was for her grandfather (a retired nurse) to go to her school at lunch EVERY day to do her accucheck and insulin. We are moving to the suburbs later this year, where she will attend a school with a full time RN.

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Mar 1, 2016

I was a "medication administration technician" with a CNA license before I went to nursing school. This was in an assisted living community and It was a great experience for me, I made a point to look up and try to understand every med I was giving, which helped a lot with my future pharmacology courses. However, I now recognize my assessment skills were extremely lacking back then. I also agree that the general public is often unaware of this legal loop hole, and many families and even physicians were surprised when I had to frequently correct them of what my title was.
Now, as the mother of a 7 year old daughter with type 1 diabetes, I get frustrated with the lack of nurses at schools. We live in a major east coast city, with terrible public schools (also, with MA instead of RNs). So, my daughter goes to catholic school, and they only have an RN once a week. Our only solution was for her grandfather (a retired nurse) to go to her school at lunch EVERY day to do her accucheck and insulin. We are moving to the suburbs later this year, where she will attend a school with a full time RN.

Isn't it amazing how much we don't really know what we don't know, until later, when we are wicked smart school nurses!!!!!

All kidding aside, it is scary when there is someone who can make a decision that has disastrous results, and it is usually because of budget reasons there is no nurse. Everyday, when I get to school, I am thankful our town supports the school and the nurses. we have always had a full time nurse in every building.

When "fiscally conservative" folks broached the idea of privatization and decreasing staff, our school board said emphatically "We support our nurses, we value them as full time employees and no, we will not consider anything less for our kids".

Before people get upset, I agree there are many fiscal conservatives who support schools, education etc. There is a small faction in our town who do not. They don't want to pay for ANYTHING. School, police fire etc. Those are the FC I refer to