Offered Camp Nurse position

I can offer this bit of advice. I have been a nurse now for 20 years and I applied for and accepted a camp nurse postion 2300 miles away from home directly after graducation. I loved it! I learned so much and the other nurses (3) were at various levles of experiance. one was also a new grad. The bottom line is most camps these days have more than one nurse, generally there is one that has experiance and one les experianced. There is also generally a Dr. avial if not on camp premis with in reasonable distance. I encourage you to try camp nursing when you feel you are ready. It is an experiance you will not forget.

A little background...I am a new grad in OH and was offered a camp position this summer but declined d/t being very new. The guy that offered me the position said he would def contact me next year around this timeto see if I could help him out. I told him i would think about it. So my question to you camp nurses is do you recommend it to someone who is fairly new? What sorts of things should I be knowedgeable on before accepting a position (pay, staffing, supplies, etc.)? What situations can I expect to run into? What other advice would you have for a newbie?

Thanks to all!

I think you are wise to wait a bit. This is my second summer of camp nursing and I find it to be as independent a practice as you can get compared to most of my other nursing experiences. We have a camp physician, but he's never on-site. My assessment skills determine whether a camper or staff member needs to see him or not, or needs to go to the ER - and whether he can be driven there or we need to call 911.

Become well familiar with asthma management - control and rescue meds, triggers, etc. Become familiar with anaphylaxis and epi-pens. Also with strains, sprains and fractures, as well as care of eye injuries and ambulatory care stuff like conjunctivitis (allergic vs. chemical vs. viral vs. bacterial), ear infection vs. otitis externa vs. swimmer's ear), signs of strep throat, bronchitis or sinus infections, impetigo, excema - there is a lot more but these came off the top of my head as I've seen them all over these past two summers (except anaphylaxis).

Subscribe to the ACN's (Association of Camp Nurses) quarterly publication, which has a lot of good clinical info for camp nurses.

Keep in touch at this site, we'd love to hear about your progress and eventual camp nursing experience - if you should decide to take one next summer.

Thank you very much for the great info!