Kind-hearted

Same here - "School Nurse, Potty-Trainer Extraordinaire" should be my official title. And no, I don't do any of the "just check his pants" stuff either. Hand them some flush-able wipes ( yes, we actually requested some from the PTO ) and point them to bathroom. It's kind of ridiculous.... Hey, I got MY eight children potty-trained. Doesn't seem fair that now I get to take on, you know, the whole world....

Don't be so hard on yourself - you've identified the problem and are taking steps to fix it. Maybe you could "visit" another school building to watch how their office is set up? Your School Nurse Manager also should come and help you get things set up and organized. This forum is also AMAZING...I've found some great ideas through the years! Too often we're just thrown to wolves & told " get it together " ....You'll figure out what works for YOU !

I had a similar note once upon a time: It said something like " This child's parents are very smart and love their child very much. Anytime child is absent from school it's because the parents are smart enough not to send him, so quit sending letters to them saying he's missed too much school. Looked suspect, so I called Dr office. Turns out that Dr had been out of the country x 6 mos....

Waste baskets double as yucky buckets here in this K-8 school :)

I am from a small community, where so often ( too often? ) teachers & parents are chums. They text & email back & forth all day long, then I'll get a call from teacher something like this: Ok, Johnny's mom is on her way to get him because he's been so tired all day long, so I'll send him to you first, so you can give it your OK. Often as not I'll WANT to say: No need, if the decision to send him home was already made without me in the loop. Why send him now? OR - Oh, is he acting sick? Does he need a nursing assessment for any reason?? Any symptoms that I should know about?? Because if he collapses in her car & never received medical care at school, I wonder who would be liable?? ???? Ticks me off, too - and is bad for the kids:(

Exactly! One year, while I was nurse at a 6-8 middle school, a little 6th grade girl came in x2 with a tummy ache on the VERY FIRST DAY . Of course, I assumed it was first day jitters, but by the 3rd time she came in, I decided to call parents....just in case.... Turns out she had an emergency appendectomy that night! Yikes!

This is just....unthinkable. We do well remember that stories of tragedies we hear about on the news are PEOPLE. With families, friends, and nurses who love them. I am so sorry!

That can be soooo disheartening. A few years a parent caught me out in the hallway, in a crowd of course, and chewed me out me with a screaming tirade ( head lice drama ) - it was awful. But I tried to take it in stride ( vented in private! ) and tried to "kill her with kindness" - a few years down the road SHE called ME for my input. Her son had been seen in ER, she felt they blew off his symptoms and if anything he was worse now. I told her to trust her mother's instinct & take him back. Later that day, she called to let me know he'd had an emergency appendectomy! We as nurses go from sinner to saint and back again with parents! Try not to let it get ya down!

I really think it takes about 3 years for a school nurse to "find her stride" - to develop your own routine, find your rhythm, AND have the confidence to buck the "we've always done it this way!" Go easy on yourself - especially when it seems that no one else does!