Thinking about School Nursing...

[julyeah]

Hey everyone,

I am currently a nursing student at Virginia Commonweath University working on my BS in Nursing. I have been getting really excited thinking about the idea of becoming a school nurse. I love kids and I think that school nurses have the unique ability to educate, promote health and intervene early with health problems/issues.

Can anyone talk to me about there experience as a school nurse? I understand there is alot of paper work. Is there alot of freedom in things you can do to promote health other than giving meds and doing screenings (ie organizing health related activities for kids maybe with working along side P.E. coaches, etc?? Or helping putting on health related events...ie maybe a fun health food fair for kids or something like that.) Timewise, is that realistic to be able to do things like that or are you already too busy doing other things? Just want to know.

OOO, this is making me excited thinking about it. Anything else you could let me know would be great!

Take care,

Julia

[bergren]

Julia

Take advantage of your student status and shadow a school nurse, perhaps even do a senior elective for a semester and shadow several different school nurses who work in different settings. Volunteer to help with vision and hearing screenings.

See the CDC School Health Index http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/ and the NASN website http://www.nasn.org for lots of detail. There have been many posts on this forum responding to students, new graduates and acute care nurses looking for descriptions. Do a search of those posts for a good summary.