Nursing Student to Shadow Me

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I have just been assigned a nursing student for this semester. I'm not exactly sure what to have her do.

I definitely do not want her on her phone texting, which they do when we have any kind of down time when they've helped me with screenings... I remember students being scolded for having their cell phones out during any kind of clinical!

I also remember shadowing a school nurse for a day and wishing I could be on my phone!

What do you normally get your students to do? I don't have any screenings scheduled at this time, but if I did, I'm sure it will be difficult to find 10 hours worth.

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Specializes in School nursing.

I haven't had a nursing student myself (though hoping to in the future), but do you have any health-related bulletin boards in your school and/or office. I have a large whiteboard that I try and update regularly with a new student-related health topic and having some help to brainstorm and/or putting it together is nice. Also, I try and get out a health-related staff e-newsletter 4 times a year. Could be another interesting topic to work with a student on.

When I first started school nursing as a sub last February, I worked at a large school where sometimes we also had two nursing students. During slow times (which were few), they helped file and we talked more in depth about topics like asthma and diabetes management in school setting. Additionally, each student had a project they had to put together and/or present during this community rotation.

Don't know if any of this helps - good luck with your student!

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Specializes in School Nursing, Public Health, Home Care.

What are the course objectives/goals? If it's pretty open-ended, I would have the student research and prepare a classroom presentation of their choice and present it.Lots of opportunities built into this activity: research, best practice, organization, public speaking, evaluation.

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Thank you for the ideas! She only has 10 hours with me, but I think I've got enough ideas between ya'll and some other nurses to keep her busy.

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Specializes in Community Health/School Nursing.

We have about 4 nursing students per year at my school. I am at a pretty small school (426 students) and only have 2 diabetics this year and one prn med for adhd. I spend a lot of my time talking about diabetes and insulin. I also cover the different types of insulin pumps (I have one student with an Omni Pod and last year a child with a Medtronic pump). I honestly don't keep them here for more than a few hours and I send them on their way. I have a small clinic and it can get crowded really quick with an extra person. :-)

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I've had my students teach the kids about hand washing. I have them assess the children that come into the clinic (I double-check of course). I give them oral case studies, for example: If a child were brought in here right now with what may be a broken arm, what would you do? They are always grateful for my feedback and it keeps them off those darn cell phones! How disrespectful is that?

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