MaltyChick

I was scheduled for MWF but would adjust my schedule for school days off to be there days with her blessing.

Thank you for the heartfelt advice! I am working at a 6 weeks long summer camp much closer to my home for the summer. It's on a beautiful historic private school campus and I love it! The office is beautiful too with Windows that even open! Plus some cool old medical things around and an old fireplace to boot! A huge step up from my office in the coaches office in the boys locker room. It smelled like sewer gases most of the time, had huge cockroaches, and was stuffy. I am am looking for another school nurse job because I love the kids so much. I don't mind inner city at all, just the drive I had. We also did not have a medical director, so I couldn't apply neosporin, caladryl or anything to the kids. This was frustrating! You Are all all correct in that I need to try another school before throwing in the towel on school nursing. Looking!!

There is an online link for a school calendar, but it's totally blank. Staff weren't even sure when the last day of school was!

I have only been a school nurse since February 2016 and already want to quit. It's at a K-8 charter school with mostly inner city kids. I am there 3 days a week and have no communication from administration. I have asked for a school calendar since day one and still don't have one! I was home ill on Monday. The principal messaged me at 9pm on Monday to tell me there was no school on Wednesday so I will need to work Tuesday Thursday Friday this week. Huh??? I have a life outside of my Monday Wednesday Friday schedule. This ticked me off. I have in the past made schedule adjustments with advance notice and with their approval, but this last minute text made me mad. And why is there a day off one week before school gets out!? Frustrated. Also, I am not getting much job satisfaction here at all. I have so many fakers (I know, they may just need attention) and I give each of them an assessment, but when I have a waiting room full of kids some with real illnesses or injuries, I get frustrated. So between no communication with admin and not a lot of real nursing to do, my job satisfaction is way down. How do each of you get satisfaction from your jobs? Not sure I want to go back in the fall. Plus the commute is terrible and the pay isn't very good either:/ Too many strikes. Sigh. I do love the kiddos, but...

I ended up calling a few parents last Friday for injuries that weren't serious, but I wanted to cover my butt. Each of them thanked me for letting them know. I felt good at the end of the day because I didn't have that feeling of not catching something or notifying someone hanging over my head. The one call I made was on a second grader with a first time nose bleed. I thought mom would want to know. When I called, she said he had a nose bleed last week and gets them all the time when he over heats!! I thanked her and told the kid! The kid had that, huh?? look on his face. She thanked me for calling anyway. Ha!

I always say kids are poor historians and getting their hx out of them is like a maddening game of Blues Clues!!

I'm new to school nursing and also find deciding when to call home the most difficult part of this job. I think your assessment was spot on and your findings all negative, besides the minor abrasion you bandaged. I would have done the same thing. I got burned a little last month with a kid with a hand injury. Assessment normal aside from some swelling at thumb knuckle, gave ice pack and sent him back to class. The next day I have admin calling me because mom called very POd because his thumb was fractured. I should have called since there was a possibilit of fx. And as I was typing this a girl comes in saying, "my hand is broken"!! It had no signs of a fx let alone injury! I did phone mom to inform of my assessment and her complaint. It can't hurt to call.

That's a great question. I have soooo many kids who think they must have an ice pack for very tiny bump. We ran out of our disposable ones and my admin secretary did not put in my order for new ones in a timely fashion AT ALL! So I was bring ice cubes from home and using zip lock baggies. Pain in the butt! We got the reusable kind now. The kids are telling me the boys like to squeeze them until they break! Nice. Plus a student told me the after school soccer kids are going into the teachers lounge and into the freezer to take them! I was so ticked off! No wonder I'm running out! I emailed the principal, and the two soccer coaches to have them address/ put a stop to this behavior!! If there's a legitimate injury, I won't have ice packs to use. Ugh. But my favorite was the two boys who came in on our first 85 degree day wearing sweatshirts and asking for ice packs because they were hot! I told them no and to wear appropriate clothing! (We don't have air conditioning!)

I do the note home for the scrapes and bumps. And give them an I Saw the Nurse sticker on their shirt so mom or dad will hopefully ask why and then the note will be remembered. We have nearly 1000 kids here, so calling on every kids that I glance at and dismiss is not at all possible. Thank you for all of your advice and support!!! That's why I love this page! I went home the other night and started looking for jobs due to frustration and fatigue. I also drive an hour each way to work 6 hours for not a great hourly rate:/ Makes days like these harder to handle and makes me want a change. But I do love being able to work with this age group and population. Sigh. I have a nice nice long weekend to chill and recharge for the last two weeks of school!!

I have a comment and a question. I too have FF that come in for an assortment of imagined ailments. I have a hard time just dismissing all of them so I usually do a cursory exam to be certain there really isn't an injury or illness, and most often there isn't. The other day I had three kids come in separately with thumbs injured at recess. I assessed pulses, NV status, ROM, provided ice and sent them on their way. The one 7th grader who is not a FF returned for more ice. No change in status. Then I get a call at home the next day from administration asking whether I called mom on this kid. No I hadn't didn't think to really since I had been desinsitized all day with the other FF. Turns out thumb was fractured and mom was upset that I hadn't called. I spoke with her and calmed her down. I explained that my assessment was on the fence and I should have called. Now I am calling far more often. My my question is: do you call home for every injury or potential injury or illness?? Even on the FFs? My principal wants me to. I explained there's not enough time in the day to do that. She now wants the teachers doing screening to weed out the ffs but the teachers don't feel comfortable making those judgements. Any advice on when to call and how to handle this new directive from the principal?

Sometimes ice packs are like the magical bandaid: they cure all. Some times I tell some kids no to the ice pack request, but I do use them a lot. My favorite requests are for "injuries" that occurred over the weekend. I usually send those kiddos off without one. But I hate to dismiss the kids too readily as many are inner city and could use an empathic ear and TLC. Ours are reusable and I do get most of them back. I think it's because the kids like me and come back with them to say hi. I had a bin outside my office for used iced packs (read dirty!) and found there were hardly ever any in there. I found kids were taking the dirty ones from the bin to play with. No bin outside the office any more!

thanks for the response. Yeah me too. I did have a conversation with her and the administrator and we are doing the Med counts my way- the right way. Interestingly, my walker talkie went missing from the reception desk where they charge it for me after hours. A few days later, the secretary suddenly had it. Hmmm. Passive aggressive much!??!! Luckily I don't need to deal with her too much.

Thank you for this great advice and the med log. I do think electronic documentation would be good for all nursing notes, however, for the medication documentation it may be challenging since my office is no where near the main office where the meds are kept since I'm part time. Hmm. Thinking up new strategies! Which electronic data system or eMAR do you use?

Thank you for this great advice. I do think electronic documentation would be good for all nursing notes, however, for the medication documentation it may be challenging since my office is no where near the main office where the kpmeds are kept since I'm part time. Hmm. Thinking up new strategies! Which electronic data system or eMAR do you use?

This post is offensive to those of us (most of us) with years and years of experience in nursing. We have put in time, paid our dues and are just venting a bit. Anyone can have a bad day, or have had bad jobs. This does not make them uncaring nurses.