School Nurse

I love being a school nurse. You take care of sick children with acute and chronic illnesses, work on prevention and health teaching for staff, families, and students. You give meds, do screenings (vision, hearing, scoliosis), and monitor immunizations. You will also participate in special education and student support teams.

I think the hospital job and school nursing job are apples and oranges and can't really be compared side by side. You are dealing with the sick but in a very different environment. You are also dealing with the healthy. The goal is trying to keep them both as healthy as possbile.

There are two overlaps though-there isn't a "normal" day, each day takes on a life of its own (even with the best of intentions and planning) and the charting never stops, same as in the hospital.

You will be just as busy as in a hospital and will use and update a whole bunch of skills. I have children whom I take care of with different needs and disease processes every year and that keeps me new and fresh so to speak.

I like the kids, I like the hours, and I like the pay. There are things I don't like but I think that is anywhere you work, within any specialty.

There is a whole forum on school nursing and I think if you look through it, it will give you some insight into the day to day goods and bad of it all. As it is June and the school year wraps up you will definitely see both:)

I hope this helps.

thank you cav5. you were very informative. I'll look for the forum you've said in the latter. thank you.