Would you do this?

Specialties School

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Say you had a student brought to your clinic w/what you think are the s/sx of anaphylaxis. Your med info sheet says student has no allergies. The students teacher, who brought the child up, said he'd thought he'd been gotten stung by a bee. 911 has been called. We do not have stock Epipens in the school. Would you use another student's Epipen on him? What would happen if the student wasn't in anaphylaxis - I know the epi wouldn't kill him, but then what? Administering medication without an order? or worse?

This is my biggest nightmare...

mc3:nurse:

Specializes in OB/GYN, Peds, School Nurse, DD.
I have stock epi-pens and I would use it if I felt it would open the child's airway. I'm not going to hurt them, it can only help. Call me crazy but I would risk my license to save the student's life. We have stock epi's for those students with unknown allergies who may have a reaction at school.

Absolutely, I would too! Here in GA we do have some legislation that protects us. Unfortunately, we do not have an epi-pen stocked in every school. But we have a parent who has graciously allowed us to keep one of her epi-pens in the box where our AED is. If we have to use it, of course, the school will have to pay to replace it. But that's small potatoes, IMO

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