"My child came to the nurse? Why didn't anyone call me??"

[safarirn]

Ugh!

A kindergartener came in on THURS saying, "my head feels hot." He had no other complaints. I took his temp. It was 98.2. Visually assessed him, he looked fine. I let him rest. After laying down for approximately 3 minutes, he states, "I feel better now." And he bounced away, running back to return to class.

On FRIDAY mom comes in with cream for a small rash to his foot. And I mention "Oh yeah, I remember seeing XXXX, he was in my office yesterday."

Well, that's where I went wrong. Cuz then it was 20 questions after that. I told her EXACTLY what the visit entailed. Even after hearing what it was about, she was still upset that she wasn't notified of his visit. I am just dumb-founded.

If I called EVERY parent of every child that visited my office for EVERY complaint, I'd NEVER get off the phone.

[Keepstanding, ASN, RN]

i know what you mean. i still get a little put out when my ds14 comes home with bumps and bruises. he's severely mentally handicapped and non-verbal, so he can't tell me what happened. when he comes home with a great big ole knee bandaid and no note, no nothing, i'm left to try to figure it out myself. christian has suffered 3 significant injuries since september--a concussion, a facial injury, and a severely bruised hip and knee which put him into a wheelchair for a week. yeah. we called an iep meeting after that, for safety concerns. thankfully, the teacher called me, but i would have really liked to get the nurse's observations. now i just tell the teacher unless it's a red, white, or blue emergency just call me and i'll come up there and check him out, since the real school nurse doesn't seem to be able to do that.

sorry, but what is a red, white or blue emergency ??

praiser :heartbeat

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

When I worked at an elementary school I had moms like that as well. I promised that mom that I'd call for every visit.... sooner than later she got tired of getting 4-5 phone calls every day !

[mustlovepoodles, RN]

sorry, but what is a red, white or blue emergency ??

praiser :heartbeat

red--excessive blood

white--seizure or vomiting

blue--not breathng right

christian's teachers know to call me first and not his dad. dad is a great guy,but he's not a medical kinda guy. he is very uncomfortable making those decisions, kinda quick to panic and sometimes he's so paralyzed by fear that he can't understand what he needs to do. i'm much more level-headed, even when christian has been very injured or having bad seizures. i guess that's why i'm the family nurse and he's the money guy

[cowgirlBSN]

I know this one well! I've had several angry parents at me over the years for this and that. My most recent one being this past Tuesday! She was mad I didn't call her the day before for her daughter getting hit by a basketball. Turns out, according to the recess supervisor she sits underneath the basketball goal during recess! So she got hit in the cheek, I examined it, gave an ice pack for 10 minutes and re checked it. Nothing to be concerned about. So I sent her to class. The next day I got a VERY hateful phone call which I had to transfer to our principal who then had to transfer it to our superintendent. She said she is going to go to the board about me and require that I call parents when something happens to their child. My practices are unacceptable!

[Nurse_Ziba]

Sorry to hear that. sounds like she just wanted to blame it to somebody else.

I've noticed that too. I'm assigned to Nursery - Grade 2 students and parents are too sensitive. I send out a clinic pass to all kids who enters the clinic - regardless of the case. Its actually just a simple note. Name, Grade, Date, Time, This is to inform you that the above student came to the clinic due to: ______________________. Then I put other info in Remarks: ______________. Signed by the nurse on duty.

I only call the parents if it is something we need to address and I feel like it is something the parents need to know ASAP. Every time I call the parents they have this worry voice and I don't want them to get stressed about small stuff.

[mc3, ASN, RN]

Well, I must have had her evil twin call me today. I got yelled at and then hung up on. She was going to report me to my supervisor and my principal. Oh well! I did let the AP know etc. etc. They backed me up. Now I plan to call each and every time. She has 4 other children at home. I am sure she'll be pleased to here from me so frequently :icon_roll.

mc3:nurse:

[S.Gettes]

The same thing was happening at the school my daughter attends. Kids will be kids, they run around and play on the playground equipment and they get injured, they skin their knees, the get sick from having their lunch and immediately running around the school yard playing and mixing up their full tummies, so needless to say there are many many students who visit the nurse everyday and they can't treat the children and call up every parent every time a child has to go see the nurse no matter how little the problem may be, but still some parents are abit over the top and overprotective and expect to be notified of every little detail, whether it is just a tiny scratch that needed a bandaid or not, so at my daughters school they went around this by instead of calling the parents, sending the children home with a red note slip in their lunchboxes for their parents which essentially said:

Name: Name of child

Has attended the school nurse today on TODAYS DATE at TIME TREATED am/pm for TYPE OF INJURY OR COMPLAINT and the treatment given was TREATMENT.

so basically if a child had a skinned knee and their name was I FELL OVER then the note would look like

Name: I Fell Over

Has attended the school nurse today on Thursday 20th January 2010 at 11:30 am/pm for A Skinned Knee and the treatment given was Cleaned wound, disinfectant, ice pack and a bandaid.

This saved plenty of time as it only took a minute to fill out and the parents were happy as they were still informed, putting them in the lunchboxes was the easiest way for the parents to find them we discovered.