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???

Emergent . Place on Droplet Precautions. Test: Chest X-ray , CBC, Blood cultures, sputum testing. Immunizations UTD? Joint & muscle aches & skin rash ??? Immunocompromised? HIV testing. Pulmonary consult. Pneumonia? But skin rash: need to r/o other causes like Psoriasis may appear on knees/shin area, ID consult. Gather more history , what type of work? when did rash appear?

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?

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.

Bausch & Lomb lubricant drops, they are the only district approved eye drops

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 !

So this is the story, on Tuesday at 0735am a 4th grader is sent to the clinic for a left pink eye where there is very small amount of yellow eye discharge, it looked like she didn't wash her face. I called home and asked mom to come and pick her up, mom said she doesn't think she has pink eye because she did not wake up with yellow crust or discharge in her eye, mom said "she was getting ready for school she had something in her eye and she kept rubbing it". Mom says "I know my child and she will do this to get out of school". It's not pink eye. So I gave her the benefit of a doubt and told her that if doesn't get better after I put eye drops she will have to pick her up. She told me that she did not have a car, but she I know she could still walk to school, she lives in some apartments close to school. So after 30 minutes , I did not see drainage and the eye looked irritated but not as pink as before , so I wrote a note back to class and told the teacher that if she noticed her eye pink to return to clinic. So it was fine, Wed. morning I had the student return to clinic to look at it and it was clear. Then Thursday , she comes to clinic at 01:00 pm and her eye is red and watery, so I call home and the phone is disconnected. I wrote a letter to the parents to let them know that she should not come to school tomorrow unless she has a doctor's note. I made a copy for myself and principal. That same evening was parent night and the mother spoke to the teacher and principal and asked why her daughter could not come to school. Friday morning the child comes to the clinic and her eye is clear and without a doctor's note. Later I get a call from mom and she said she was giving me a new number to call to since the other one got disconnected. I am so frustated because I can't tell what caused her eye to look pink , was it really pink eye but mom is self treating her with old antibiotic drops or is the child putting something in her eye to get out of school? I don't trust this mother anymore.

That's crazy. It doesn't make sense, if they aren't feeling their best, their scores could reflect that.

This reminds me, on another test day, there was a student who had suspected pink eye (without eye discharge) and he was brought to the clinic about halfway thru his test. The principal was notified also and was asking what would happen if he stayed until he finished- he wanted him to stay. I told him that for pink eye they are excluded because it is contagious and he needs to be seen by a doctor. Since he would be sitting most of the time and not interacting, he could continue testing, but during lunch he would have to return to clinic to eat. Those were my recommendations and also a lot of handwashing and avoid touching the eye. The principals seemed satisfied that he was able to return because he added "he's a bright student". But I felt uncomfortable with him being able to return to class. I did call the mother however to let her know that he had pink eye and I recommended her to take him to a clinic that has late hours.

Working in the hospital while pregnant is risky too. Here in the clinic like mustlovepoodles said, kids don't know personal space. And yes my office is enclosed but I keep the door open. If teachers don't let them come behind their desk, and I only see kids that could be sick, it would be best if I did the same. The problem in my office is that my desk and chair are not facing the door (there isn't enough room turn it around), so the kids come right next to me, and lean on my chair to let me know they are there. Or they cough into their mouths and put their hands on my desk. And I also have my water bottle sitting on my desk. Of course I'm not saying I'm going to avoid having contact with them, the problem is when I'm sitting and we are at eye level and they sneeze or cough right next to me or my personal things. The DO NOT ENTER sign on the shoestring works because they stop right at the door and they show me their pass so I can read it. So far it's been good.

I agree, in my case, there's a lot of test anxiety and they are brought in for nausea, stomachache, and headaches. I had one that who complained of stomachache during the test, I did my assessment-everything WNL and allowed rest, still not feeling the same but he insisted that he wanted to get back to testing. I escorted him back to test area and teacher asked me to tell assistant principal that he was back in class. So i went and told her and she gets upset and said "he didn't look good if he's in pain he needs to go home" I told her everything is normal, no fever, no diarrhea, I think he's got test anxiety. So I suggested that we wait 15 minutes to see if he does better and see if counselor will talk to student. The counselor went to talk to student during his test break and he was 100% better. But sometimes this makes me think "what am I here for?" if someone else is going to make decisions for me and why did the teatcher tell the assistant principal before letting me see him first?

Do any of you work for districts where RN's were cut to save money? I work at a district where only RNs with a BSN are hired and I am so lucky that our district decided not to cut any nurses for next school year. The surrounding districts are replacing about 1/2 of their Rns with LVN's. So it is a possibility that out district will get to that point in 2012-2013 even though one of the superintendents was strongly opposed to the idea. I was so happy to leave the hospital and find a school nurse position because I knew it was what I wanted to do when I was in school, I also felt that I was finally putting my BSN to use. I know some of you are LVN's and are great school nurses, but what are your opinions on this change?

I just found out 2 weeks ago that I'm pregnant, I have my first appointmen in 1 week but I've had 4 positive tests. Anyway I'm really worried about protecting myself from all these kiddos. I've put a DO NOT ENTER sign on a plastic yellow table linen I used for a party and taped it on the entrance of my office. Sometimes these kiddos come in coughing and get right next to me to give me their clinic pass. Anyway I don't want to seem rude by keeping them out of my office but I have to keep myself safe of germs. Any ideas, my friend also suggested a string with a DO NOT ENTER sign . I guess the disposable table linen looks exaggerating.

There is a kindergarten teacher that in my opinion lacks patience with her students. She has a male student in her classroom that frequently soils his underwear (possible encopresis, he has all the signs and symptoms, but I'm not the doctor , I can't diagnose). I've sent her an e-mail with information on encopresis for educational purposes and to help her understand that it is a complex condition and reprimanding does not work to treat it. I also told her that the counselor was going to see him and she says "the counselor isn't going to do anything, the mom needs to teach him how to clean himself". The counselor told me that the student states "my teacher told me I have to use RR at home not at school". And she still yells at him. Today she sent him without a clinic pass, so I send him back to class with blank passes and he returns with nothing and "my teacher said she doesn't need any more passes". So i called her, no answer. So I just forget it and treat his finger that was smashed by a door at home 3 days ago and mom claims x-rays ruled out fracture and then I send him back. Then he returns without a note and shows me the bandage has minor oozing of blood because he hurt it again, so I change the bandage wrap and sent him back. Then he returns again without a note because he washed his hands and it got wet, so I change it again. Then he returns without a note, and i'm like now what , he says "it's too tight" when I know I checked that the bandange wasn't too tight before he left, so I write on a blank pass "no treatment necesary, he needs to keep it on, please send students with pass to clinic". Then he returns again with a note finally with complaint "not clean, he smells" and i did smell it now that he was close enough, then he tells me I have clothes in backpack, so I return him back to class and write "he says he has clothes in back pack, he does not need to return to clinic, we do not have wet wipes anyway." and that was the end of that. Should I talk to principal about her yelling at him and not sending passes multiple times, I don't want to sound like a snitch or complaint. This teacher is really annoying me now, especially because she sends notes with "call mom for ..." , or "he's really sick" and then comes back and asks "did the parent's come and pick him up?" and I'm like "No I didn't need to call, no fever, he rested, and when asked how he feels he said he feels good, he was fine , I sent him to his music class".

1.elementary (k-5) 2.almost 700 students- we also have 1 life skills class and 2 units for autism (behavioral units) 3. On a slow day 15-18 per day, most days 22, my busiest so far was 42 . 4. no assistant 5. Most common complaints: HA, Stomachache, clothing needs repaired, unexplained rashes, pain/soreness, head bumps, nosebleeds, bites- from autistic students. I have asthmatics, 1 crohn's, 1 encopresis, no diabetics.

Update on what happened: We had a meeting with mom (principal, asst principal, classroom teacher and I). It went well, mom was cooperative, principals expressed their concern about academic progress and how she is falling behind. Teacher said she could help her during after school activities. Mom also admitted that maybe she is a little over protective. We talked about how the student should always have her inhaler with her, and mom said that the reason that she didn't have it with her was because she would carry it in a bag with the spacer, but we agreed that it would be a better idea to just take the inhaler in her pocket and not use spacer at school. She also wants an adult to accompany her child to clinic for any complaint of respiratory difficulty. The next week, mom visited the school again and brought a letter from an asthma specialist that she needed to be in a classroom inside the building instead of the portables. And the specialist also did an allergy test and apparently she's allergic to many things, he also changed her medications put her on pulmacort, two allergy medications, and some thing else can't remember. Mom states her condition has improved. But this week, her daughter came to the clinic brought a note from teacher that states stomach hurt, I remembered that she has started menstruating and I asked her if it was menstrual cramps or really stomachache, she stated it was cramps. I gave her a heating pad and after 15 minutes, no improvement, so I call mom since she lives down the street and asked her if she wants to bring motrin (cause I knew she would), she said she would take bout an hour but still wanted to give her med, so i send student back to class. Then when mom comes to give her the med, the student tells her quietly "I threw up", and mom asked if teacher knew, the student says "yes she just told me to go to RR and throw up" and so she takes her home.

Yep, that's what I'm learning. Parents have all sorts of reactions, today I called a mother at work because her kindergartner was hit with an object (student didn't know what it was) that another student threw during recess, he had a red mark. Any way, I explained how the event occurred, my assessment details, my interventions, the symptoms to observe for at home, and all she said was ok, allright, thank you. I felt relieved to know that I let the parent know and I didn't have to expect any phone calls. But I still left late, a bus driver tripped and fell, hurt her nose and head.