kidsndogs

Thank you for the comments. I agree that there needs to be more preventive care, teaching, health promotion. I have no time to do anything like this. I also don't seem to get support for this when I bring it up to the administration. They don't appear to have any idea of what is really going on. I find that my office is the first line of health care for many of these kids. Parents send their kids to school to have me look at them before they take a day off work, or spend money on a copay because no one can afford unnecessary medical expenses or to miss work. I feel like I can't be proactive because I am constantly putting out fires. I am not charting the kids who have chapped lips, or need a band aid ( I do pass out band-aids by the handfuls to teachers). I am charting the ones that need to be assessed or that I provided an intervention for. I try to check everyone who has hit their head, or fell and hurt a limb. I can not have a student limp in to my office and just tell them to walk it off. I also do a lot of individual teaching with my students when they come in. I discuss nutrition, exercise, injury prevention, pregnancy prevention, I care for my pregnant students, I take care of rashes... Then there are the daily burns from the kids in shop class, or the infected spider bites from home. I take temperatures, encourage more water drinking for headaches...I talk to parents frequently. I'm a good nurse, and I believe the kids like to see me because I treat them like they are important and they will learn in my office. I have talked to the principals about the need for help or for breaks. They say, why don't you just shut the door. So, it never fails, every time I shut the door I the office is calling me on my cell. Today I sat down to eat and I about a possible concussion. Last time it was a kid with a reattached finger and the bandage came off and blood everywhere. It is always something. I'm not even including the kids that I give daily meds to or the diabetics in the number of kids I am seeing. What I am charting is above that. I am leaving this job.

I have been a school nurse for almost a year. I serve approximately 1900 kids with a medical assistant in one of my buildings. She serves approximately 350 students. The rest are mine. I never see less than 35 kids a day, but mostly I am seeing 45-50+. That is beside my diabetics and my kids that require daily meds. I don't have a time for a lunch. I go many days without a bathroom break or even drinking water all day. I have told them I need an assistant. Most days I feel like I am putting my license at risk due to the amount of kids I am seeing. Sometimes the risk is high when I have kids with possible or real head injuries and diabetics who need me at the same time. I do good assessments, I listen to them, I chart as thoroughly as possible. Yesterday I decided that I am leaving. I have all the liability for these kids and no other medical person to refer to when I need help or I am drowning. The office secretaries never miss a lunch yet when I need help they act like deer in the headlights. I'm wondering if I'm just a big whiner or if I'm right to think that this is too much for one nurse and too risky for my license. I am afraid I will miss something and a kid will be hurt because of it.