katynurs22

I know we can all agree how much more satisfying it is to be a school nurse rather than working bedside. At times I do miss doing IV's and other skills we don't really do in school setting, but I remember the feeling of overwhelm when you're discharging and admitting left to right, answering call lights, and staying late to finish charting (while not on the clock). Uugh! Currently I am subbing for nurses in the district . I have 2 years experience of school nursing, I was out for 1 year due to other endeavors. Never had to deal with diabetics, sickle cell, g-tubes, my previous school was pretty healthy, I feel subbing is helping me become a better school nurse. I am hoping a full-time position opens up and is the right fit for me. Currently Im only needed about 2 days/week, so I am getting the urge to do PRN work, and there's def some at local hospital, but nothing in pediatrics which i would have liked to do, even though before school nursing my background was in med/surg, tele, and postpartum/gyn ...but I don't know if I can readjust to bedside :/ Have any of you gone back to hospital after school nursing for prn work or temp? Jeez I don't even know what area to apply to... I would still like to expand my nursing skills and knowledge but only if it will benefit me in school nursing. I also thought about non-bedside like ENT clinic since i do get frequent visits for these issues, but i dont know if I will learn much in a clinic. Any ideas???

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Wow, :/ well you should be proud of what you have learned and put up with so far, i wouldn't be able to last more 3 days on a psych unit. I'll just tell you that in Med/surg you will encounter some patients that will be transferred from psych facilities due to medical conditions that cannot be treated in their own facility. I had some combative patients, most had restraint orders. I once had a pt that overdosed on THC, was combative, and spoke in tongues to me. And one time I was chased by a delusional patient who thought I was ought to get her when I tried to get a blood sugar on her. She threatened to kill me. Thank God we had Security , they got her back in the room. It was close to change of shift , so I didn't have deal with her any longer. I was only in med/surg for 10months, I would say keep looking for other job opportunities, I think HR and manager would understand where you are coming from. In the city where I live we have many psych facilities, one is very prestigious and expensive, mostly for people who have anxiety, OCD's, professional in crisis, but it is a laid back environment (for a psych facility). I did a clinical there, and the nurses where pretty satisfied with their jobs.

Thank you all! I realized I have job hopped , it was not my plan :/ (except for med/surg... most hospitals would take anyone with 6-12 months med/surg experience, so I knew i was doing it for the experience). I have found a buyer for my business , so I will most likely go back to nursing. I do want my nursing career move to be stable and long-term. Since there are no open positions for school nursing, Im going to sub for the district and seek PRN or volunteer work, whatever I can find, so I can get "my foot in the door" , I'll get exposure to the area and see where I want to end up. Thank you for your suggestions .

What you have to consider in choosing a career, are your strengths and weaknesses. Nursing, whether bedside or not requires frequent contact with people: patients &family, doctors, managers. Consider this, if you work in a inpatient hospital setting you will have to assist your patients with cleaning of body fluids. Nowadays only really sick people stay in hospitals, the rest go through ambulatory care or home health. Good communication skills are essential in nursing and it's a high paced environment. In a lab setting you are working mostly with things, you have to be organized , usually there already is a system that you have to follow to keep organized. In nursing , you are handed 3-7 patients,depending on what area you are in and you have to prioritize to choose which patients need more attention, meds need to be handed out at different times, each day is different. Every day you wake up to go to work , you want to be happy doing what you do! Do what fits you better. Good luck in your decision.

Of course I didnt like cleaning poop on med/surg tele floor either, I was disgusted with C.diff , gagged a few times. I made sure not to breath deeply while cleaning. In my case , I always felt dirty after going into isolation rooms, especially C.diff. That's what surprised me the most when I began working in med/surg, 1/3 of the unit on isolation. Then, I worked gynecology/postpartum floor and was relieved to not have to deal isolations or poop. The only cleaning I did was peri care, but I could handle that. My last clinical during nursing school was on a floor like someone had mentioned before, it was a telemetry floor with post-cath , post pacemakers, most patients were well enough to go to a bedside commode or with assistance to bathroom. However it seems that these floors only exist in large hospitals. Bottom line , do what makes you happy!

I felt the same way, I became a school nurse at 24 and it didnt help that I was 4'10. I had a parent ask me if I just applied and landed the job, and I said "Noooo I went to school for 4 years to get my Bachelor's degree in Nursing , passed a test to be a Registered Nurse and I've been a nurse for 2 years prior to this." It's sad to think people think anyone off the street can just apply to be a school nurse. Actually it's ignorant. Never really had the kids say anything like that, but a few called me "doctor" sometimes, and I corrected them of course.

I started on a med-surg floor (nights) and I was only there for 10 months, I would get anxiety from the moment i exited the ramp to the hospital and to top that, the unit where I was hired was frequently closed due to low census , so I would get floated to other medical floors (cardiac, Surgical, med/oncology). I attended a job fair and at another hospital and I it was between cardiac floor or gyn/postpartum. I went with gyn/postpartum and loved it, some of my coworkers would complain at times, but I would always remind them at least we werent on a med/surg floor. Unfortunately, I had some problems in my marriage , working 8 hour night shifts didnt help the situation , so I gave up my position when I was offered a job as a school nurse. I eventually wanted to do school nursing , but didnt think after 2 years of nursing I would end up there. I enjoyed working as a school nurse but I still want more clinical exposure. Currently I'm self employed, my husband have a food business, but its rocky and I'm probably going back to work soon, just don't know what I want to do, but I'm sure God will find a place for me, so I'm not worried! Remember your health and your family is of most importance. And your happiness of course! Some things to think about: If you want to advance your degree, is the NP route the best for you ? there are other graduate programs/routes for nurses, and how soon do you plan on returning to school? Good luck with your decision.

So let me just start by giving a little background about myself. I've been an RN for 3 years, and had experience as a PCA at a stepdown pediatric unit my last semester in school. Then, when I graduated, I wasn't sure if pediatrics was for me so I decided to go the safe route and accepted a med/surg Tele Rn position , I did that for almost 1 yr (10 mths). After that found a job at a hospital that was only 15 minutes away in a gyn/postpartum floor, but it was a 11p-7a position. I loved that floor , but it was hard on my marriage so after 1 yr I got tired of working nights and luckily I was hired for an elementary school nurse position. It had its pros and cons but I liked it overall (no weekends, no holidays, summers off :). I did school nursing for 1 yr and a half and left to open up a food business ,l always had an itch to do it and finally did but it's been hard and I'm working 65+ hours a week. I've thought about selling the business and getting back into nursing. So I'm wondering if the experience I've had will help me land a pediatric RN job. Im a little scared since I've been out of the hospital setting for 2 years. I would like a PRN or part-time position. Im sure during orientation I will have to be there full time to train , and hopefully will be allowed to work PRN - I'm looking for flexibility and planning on starting a family so I find it better to get a babysitter 2-3 x's a week rather than 5 days a week. I've been brushing up on my acute care skills through online CEU's , and plan on reviewing my nursing school material on pediatrics. Any other suggestions?

I found and interesting new business for nurses, this business provides care for newborns at night for those parents who have had a NICU baby and are worried about their care outside of the hospital or just want to get some sleep. They hire PRN nurses, which is great for nurses who want to pick up more shifts ,not in the hospital Here's the link : http://brilliantly-baby.com/night-nurse-faqs/

Today starts the last 5 weeks of school and by now I know which students come in for minor and unnecessary issues. I send back a FF that did not have fever with stomachache-he thinks it was his breakfast- he wanted to lay down, but assured him he could go back to class- he's tried the whole "but my stomach keeps hurting and my mom told me to have you call". I've already spoken to the mom after he was picked up for sever pain and went home but wanted to play video games, so she doesn't want him missing class. Today a kid asked me if he could draw until he felt better -he came in for nausea- i allowed him to sit up and instructed him that laying down will not help if he is nauseated- i observed him for 10 minutes and send him back to class , if he actually has vomiting episode he'll come back. I love my job and I like caring for those kids that have chronic issues, so i don't want to get burned out with visits that require non-nursing attention and can be handled in the classroom or are non-existing stomachaches just to get out of math class. I'm sending emails to teachers and letting them now which students are coming in frequently and how many times ,they are minor issues. So far it's been working. Visits have gone down from 30-35 to 20-23 per day as of last week.

Thanks for the replies, did not know it would leave a permanent stain , never had that happen to me. I didn't think i could do much for it other than wash it with soap and water. It's my second year as a school nurse, it really bothers me when I am not sure what to do with these little insignificant issues that teachers get worried about. Good to know , just in case mom asks what she should do about it.

What do you when a student accidentally stabs with pencil lead? I know pencil doesn't have actually have lead, its graphite and harmless. A student came in with a note from the teacher asking if i could remove it with tweezers, it was on his palm. However there is not a visible pencil tip , the area is red and looks stained from the graphite. So i sent him back after washing the area with soap and water and applying a bandaid, and giving him an ice pack. He comes back 3 hours later with the same note, because he feels there is something in his hand, i looked at it again but i don't see anything but a small amount of skin peeled and the grayish color. He still wanted me to look for it, but when i used the tweezers to look for the pencil lead, he jumped up and i told him i didn't want to continue if it hurt him. So i wrote a note to the teacher letting her know pencil lead is not real lead and i was unable to remove anything. Then the student tells me , the teacher said she wanted to e-mail his mom about the pencil incident.

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Thanks for your reply and recommendations. Pink eye is really hard to assess to me, especially as a fairly new school nurse. I don't know what to believe sometimes. My school is a title 1;it's in a very low income neighborhood and getting the kids to see a doctor has been an issue here. We have lots of assistance programs, such as local neighborhood clinic offering free first time visits and assistance ministries that help to pay for doctor's visits. I have seen frequent medical neglect and how some parents choose folk medicine healers instead of medical doctors. Folk medicine is okay for some things but not for sprains and possible fractures. I find myself jumping to conclusions about the parents , especially since I've had an encounter with this mother already. I don't know if she treated her herself , but the kiddos eye is clear and no one else has it in her classroom !