Maine17

We actually has an incident 2 years ago when a K+ student drank some instant sanitizer-fortunately it was only a small amount. After checking with Poison Control (and notifying parents), we just monitored the student all morning. I agree with the previous post-it should be someplace that it can be monitored. The problem that may arise is with students who have their own little bottles of sanitizer in their backpacks/lunchboxes. With H1N1, good luck to any district that tries to tell parents that they cannot send their children to school with their own sanitizer.

Hi! I am in southern Maine. I started out working at Children's in Boston, lots of VNA and now 14 years of school nursing. Two years ago I moved from elementary to middle school. I am lucky to be able to work fulltime in one school with 550 students.

We have no audit ability or any way to know who is looking at our logs. The rationale the district uses to allow our logs to be read by the principal/secretary is that the principal needs to be aware of what is going on in their school, esp. if there is not a nurse in the building. Four of our schools have full time nurses and two have half-time nurses. We keep our principals up to date on all serious situations. Rarely does a school not have a nurse in the building or availble if needed.

This is kind of a followup question -something that has been bothering me. My school district (and many others) use a medical record system where the nurses log in each student visit. My concern is this system allows the principal, his secretary and the guidance counselors all access to this log when they pull up the student. I feel this is a breech of confidentiality-what do you think? Thanks.

I am a school nurse in Maine-550 middle school kids. School nurses across the country have been told to use fever as the primary symptom (for H1N1 screening), usually with cough, sore throat etc. The directive comes from the CDC-repeated attempts to address the findings of up to 40% of cases have been afebrile (initially) have been ignored by the CDC. Until the vaccine is available, the school setting is going to be a zoo! Even with an optimistic estimate of 40% of students that will recieve the vaccine, by the time they recieve two doses, separated by 3-4 weeks, add two weeks for antibody development-we are looking at mid-December.

The rapidly evolving situation in Australia is pretty amazing.

Thanks Indigo Girl for clarifying that info. It seems that we probably will have no choice but to go with adjuvants due to the need to make as much vaccine as possible (assuming the virus does not mutate). Wonder if this is something that the US should have been looking into to prepare for a pandemic. Makes me think that we are woefully unprepared to handle a significant event.

First I would like to thank Indigo Girl for the incredible amount of factual info that she has gathered and posted regarding influenza. Awesome job! The more I read about bird flu/swine flu, the more convinced I become that we are overdue for a world pandemic which we are totally unprepared for. For all the advances we have made in science, we have lost more in plain common sense. The significant cuts in public health, hospitals, staff, equipment etc. will come back to haunt us. Still, I find myself feeling like an alarmist. I am surrounded by smart, well educated people-none who are very concerned about a 'true' pandemic. I cant figure out if they are just too busy to think about it or they really dont believe it will happen.

I read the link about adjuvants, but it did not state why the FDA has not approved the use of adjuvants with the influenza vaccines in the past. Does anyone know why?

Maine gets out June 17th. Cant wait for summer.

I am very lucky to be in a district that has a nurse in every building every day. I cant imagine having to be responsible for more than the 530 students I already have. God love all you nurses running from building to building!

The 504 eligibility requirements have become so broad that almost anyone who has a health problem will now be eligible for 504 protection. The emphasis will switch from eligibility to the need for accommodations. Each nurse will need to look at her list of students with health problems and determine which ones (without meds) have a condition that substantially limits a major life activity-walking, talking, breathing, learning, concentrating, listening. That list will most likely include all of your kids with ADHD, some asthmatics etc. These kids are all eliglble for 504 and need a plan. Your principal will need to know who has 504 protection because if there is a disciplinary issue with a 504 student, certain protoccol may need to be followed.

Has anyone out there started to look at what the new 504 eligibility regs will mean as far as volume of paperwork?

I agree completely with Artistyc1-we do the same thing. Cowgirl-Part of your job is not only educating your students/staff, but your administration also. Send them copies of what AMA, NASN, Harvard School of Public Health etc. all say about No nit policies-they are all against them.

I guess I am not clear about "providing treatment to staff" aspect. If a teacher asks for Tylenol/Ibuprofen because their back is sore, would you say that you are 'treating' that teacher? If a teacher comes into my office and asks for some ice or asks to borrow a heating pad, I have never thought of that as treating them. Now, if a teacher asks for my advice, I am very careful about what I say and how I say it. What do you all think?