School Nurses: Non-Nursing Tasks????

[uthscsa2011]

Hello fellow school nurses. I thought I'd start a topic about the little (or big) NON-nursing tasks you are forced to deal with on a daily basis?

I'll start with a few of my own:

1) Wiping off tattoos (sounds little, but one took me 10 min to completely wipe away!)

2.) Earring insertion and removal

3.)Untangling a child's hair from her headphones from computer class

4.) Helping children with homework while they are waiting to be picked up

5.) staying after school for STARR testing training

6.) Having to call parents when a child pees/poops themselves

7.) Having to find a clothespin or safetypin to pin pants together when the button falls off

8.) Finding clothes for students who came to school with a shirt that was too big, pants too tight, shirt too low cut,

What can yall come up with?

[caretakerofkids, RN]

all of the above plus...

getting gum out of hair

repairing broken eyeglasses

and I've been asked to clean dog poo off a shoe

[Kafergie]

Pretty much the same thing here, plus requesting homework assignments for absent kids. I've never been to a school where this is a practice. But here, when parents call in the absence, they can request the days work be sent to the office. I email those requests to the teachers. Seems odd if I child is sick enough to stay home that they shouldn't be up late doing homework

When the outdoor allergens are bad, teachers wanted to let kids who had to stay indoors at recess stay in the clinic instead. Put a stop to that one quickly!

Is it summer yet?????

[SchoolRN2010]

I also have been asked several times to remove fingernail polish (it's against the dress code here), remove dog poo from a child's shoe , have had to remove a child's hand out from his belt buckle (teacher said it was "stuck", but it slid out just fine for me) and have had a child sent down to me (this week, in fact) for "excessive hiccups and burping". Just a few I can think of off the top of my head.

P.S. Alcohol wipes work great to remove those pesky fake tattoos!

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

oh, i get plenty of those type of tasks. Apparently I am the fashion police around here and i get to make the final call on appropriate dress when it comes to iffy callls. I have also been sent many a student for sharpie tattoo removal. I mean how does a teacher not notice a student drawing bright blue flames up his arms all through class?? It took the next period teacher to notice and half a bottle of alcohol to remove it. I am the drop point for anonymous bullying reports - which doesn't involve much beyond reporting to to the next person. and the list just goes on and on.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

why would you bother removing the "tattoo"?

oh, i get plenty of those type of tasks. Apparently I am the fashion police around here and i get to make the final call on appropriate dress when it comes to iffy callls. I have also been sent many a student for sharpie tattoo removal. I mean how does a teacher not notice a student drawing bright blue flames up his arms all through class?? It took the next period teacher to notice and half a bottle of alcohol to remove it. I am the drop point for anonymous bullying reports - which doesn't involve much beyond reporting to to the next person. and the list just goes on and on.

[Tina, RN]

Everything listed above...

Plus: Getting knots out of shoelaces, taping broken plastic headbands together, cutting price tags off of clothing, fixing every broken shoe in the building, and on and on. This stuff gets to me sometimes, but I try to stay pretty flexible.

[SNB1014, RN]

i nhate to say it, but the clearest memory i have of my HS school nurses was them making me put my hands on my legs to test if my shorts were too short. and then calling my parents to bring me a change of clothes. but she wouldnt slip me a tylenol for headaches that kept me out of class for periods at a time and didn't care to clue my parents in on a raging eating disorder when i got "caught " throwing up in the bathroom.

i just have had such horrible school nurse experiences....and i was a chronically sick child in elementary school d/t a congenital disorder and that lady blamed me for throwing my medical supplies around in the bathroom when it was actually other mean kids :-/

[Morganalefey]

I had one sent to me because the lens popped out of his glasses, LOL.

I did the best I could. Not sure how a nurse could magically fix that better then a teacher!

[Mother Hen RN]

I am currently a school nurse in a charter school..."all hand on deck" My newest task is washing and organizing the extra uniforms. I dedicated a closet and set times that i distribute uniforms for any reason you can think of. Not my favorite part of my job, but it saves girls embarrassment in difficult situations. But since when did the nurse have to do the laundry???

[NutmeggeRN, BSN]

Oh yeah! getting rubber cement out of hair, deskunking a kid nailed at the bus stop, fixing eyeglasses with dental floss, removing stuck rings (used a ring cutter more than once) also Fantastic works well (with parent permission of course) and the list goes on and on......

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

oh, i never thought about using dental floss. i will attempt a replacement screw - if i struggle for more than a minute, i shove a toothpick in there and snap it off at the top and bottom. your method sounds better!