Artistyc1

Oddly, I had a child that was doing this. I even sent her to the hospital once, as she managed to be coughing to the point of vomiting. She wasn't helped by the inhaler. I am studying to be certified as an asthma educator, and found literature that was citing something called a "habitual cough". We found that we just had to tell her "Stop that!" and, she stopped.... It is VERY strange, but thought I would put that out there for you. She had her classroom turned upside down for MONTHS. Yet, her color would remain good; did find out that there were problems at home, but never really addressed that issue.

If they will wash their hands, it is not airborne illness. They are NOT "turbocontagious". Not everyone even requires treatment.

Pinkeye has several forms, and it has to spread by hand contact. Sending the child back to class, if they wash their hands is not an issue. Also, many schools do not exclude for conjunctivitis. It is usually viral, and self limiting. It is most often caused by the same virus that causes the common cold. Since we don't exclude for common colds, my district does not exclude for this, either. If the child can be trusted to use good hand technique, isn't too itchy/uncomfortable, we don't send them home.

Hate to tell you, but this is misinformation. Lice don't JUMP. They don't have the proper jointing of their legs to do that. Parents get this sort of misinformation, and the hysteria perpetuates. I don't know what you may have seen on that woman's head, but it couldn't have been lice.

As it appears that there will be no cooperation from this mother, for whatever reason, you need to consider protecting the child, AND yourself. If I were to see seizures that did not appear to be stopping after a 5 minute period, 911 would be called, then the mother. If the mother does not like this, she can appear at the school when 911 arrives, and dismiss them herself. She cannot just dictate what will be done without a physician's input, and it is her choice to do so. Your main purpose is to protect this child.

Take things one thing at a time, there will be lots of time for those decisions after you complete nursing school. Maybe you won't even want to be a nurse at all! Not everyone that begins nursing school in the first place concludes that nursing is really their calling. Also, when you are in school, you will attend lots of different rotations, through many specialties- perhaps another specialty will call to you. I don't think (flame me, if you wish,) that school nursing is a wise place for a new grad, anyway. It takes a lot of experience, IMO, to be able to look at all the facets of the problems that come up in this area of nursing. Many of your cares will be social, not medical. I had nearly 30 years fulltime experience before I entered school nursing, and not a day goes by where something I have not seen before occurs! It is not as predictable and routine as many people outside this specialty think.

I am in NY, but I had the program for 5 years. I abandoned it last year, as I was having difficulty getting teachers to buy into the program enough to give the rinse as instructed. They just did NOT do it!! It got to be such a problem that the rinse was expiring before it was used. As I used massive amounts of my own time to set this program up, you can imagine my frustration. As I am in a rural, low income school, this was doubly upsetting. For so many of these kids, this was the closest thing to "dental care" they would get!

It is too bad that our health care system was set up to be very profitable for insurance companies, with costs rising faster than any other commodity. Many people, even if they work hard, work several jobs, and are obtaining as much education as their abilities will allow for cannot qualify for a job that will qualify them for health insurance. So many Americans seem to believe that it is a God-given right to get cheap food, cheap hamburgers, cheap labor, and cheap crap from China, the people that work to sell us these things are just invisible. They have lives, dreams, hopes, just like any of us. But, we try to pretend that they do not exist, as it MIGHT bother our consciences. Then, there are those that don't HAVE a conscience to bother.

I am sure that is the reason that millions of Americans without health care coverage would want it; so they can go to the ER to have the gum removed from their hair. Do you think that insured people don't ever abuse the health care system? It is one of the issues cited that help keep all of our insurance premiums nice and high. It is just more convenient to blame the poor for all our ills. After all, there are no working poor people in America.

Perhaps only COMPASSIONATE people agree that the fight against universal health care is an uncaring, selfish thing.

Maybe, with some luck, you won't find yourself in the situation of millions of Americans that didn't expect to find themselves without insurance, and with nowhere to turn but the ER for care.

And, with any luck, you won't end up one of the millions of uninsured Americans that have nowhere to turn but the ER for any care at all.

I am a little confused about this post. Is there an RN that oversees the LPN that replaced you? I am in NY as well. I believe that a district is NOT mandated to have a nurse of any kind. However, if there IS a school nurse, it must be an RN. I think some get around this by having an RN "supervise", but with as busy as many offices and schools are, this may be supervision by phone only.

It is pretty ridiculous to have "no nit" policies in this day and age. Nits don't go from head to head. They also may never hatch. If they are old, the child is going home for no good reason, and missing educational opportunity. Sad that parents and teacher choose to remain ignorant, instead of bothering to read the evidence based information that is out there. This sort of hysteria is what keeps a multibillion dollar lice treatment industry wealthy.

Every Monday head check? That alone is pretty humiliating for any child that MAY be found to have any evidence of lice. That is an outrageous misuse of time and resources for an educational facility, in my opinion. Lice are frequently misdiagnosed in the first place.