what is a typical day of a school nurse?

bergren · Feb 16, 2006

The pay is less tha hospital, but differs depending on parts of the coutnry.

Many school nurses sponsor clubs and coach sports. In fact in many communities, you could do this even if working in the hospital. It is not unusual to have coaches who do not work for the district. Getting off at 3:30 might work for some high schools schedules. You could get an assistant to start warm-ups

TrudyRN · Jul 1, 2007

I have been a school nurse on 2 or 3 days only, working just to fill in via an Agency.

It was totally busy!

There is a nonstop (it seemed to me) flow of students and staff. Here is what I recall:

Some kids do not eat breakfast and come in feeling weak and faint. It is amazing what a little milk and a granola bar did for them.

lots of menstrual cramps

lots of headaches, scrapes, minor injuries, twisted ankles in gym and on the playground

School was allowed to give only Tylenol or ibuprofen, only with signed permission slip on file. I offered lots of kids the chance to come in and sleep/rest a while on the cots in the office, some with cool cloths on their heads (migraines)

Every now and then, a more serious injury or illness - broken bone, abdominal pain that needs further attention, high fever with rash and stiff neck (think of meningitis, which it turned out to be, and what a mess for follow-up, as no one knew how many others had been exposed), teacher with chest pain, looking gray and sweating (think heart attack), pregnant girl with heavy bleeding in 6th month, depression/ADHD, autism, just to give a few examples;

School nursing is a lot like summer camp nursing, in that you are dealing with a basically healthy population but there are so many things that can happen. You will need good assessment skills to be able to form an opinion as to what body systems are involved and whether something is serious to warrant calling 911, calling parents to come pick their kids up and take them to the doctor or ER, offering rest/reassurance, referring the kids for follow-up with their doctor as soon as possible, or some other approach, such as sending them back to class, maybe with a note to sit out PE (like with cramps) or do activity as tolerated only.

You probably need to check with a couple of school districts in your area to get a fuller picture of what school nursing is like. Also, going on the internet or to a local Nursing library would probably yield lots of good info.

Depending on where you would work, your work might include lots of kids in horrendous family situations, below poverty line, ultra wealthy, drug-users, alcoholics, STD's, psychiatric problems, parents (or students, too) who don't speak English, just the whole gamut of life's problems and challenges.

You can be a great influence in the kids' lives.

Yes, pay is lower but the trade-off is your work hours, summers and holidays off, plus you get to do your coaching.

Good luck!

bergren · Jul 2, 2007

Trudy did an excellent job of describing a typical day of a substitute nurse, where you need to hold down the fort and safely respond to staff and students with emergencies and episodic needs, administer medications, and carry out skilled nursing procedures such as trach suctioning, tube feedings and catheterizations. However, when a full time registered nurse is employed in a student health setting, just a few of the other areas the nurse is responsible for:

1. assisting with authoring policies and procedures

2. data driven practice - ie information management

3. emergency plans and health care plans for acute and chronically ill children

4. meeting federal requirements for Section 504 and Special Education

5. Preventative care, health promotion and health education

6. Partnering with stakeholders in the school and community

7. Training and Delegating to unlicensed personnel

8. Implementing evidence based interventions for individuals, groups and the school population - for instance, in response to a needs assessment following an observation of the breakfast issue, the prudent thing to do would be to review the literature which would provide rationale for school breakfast as a evidence based intervention for both decreasing time out of class for health complaints, but also for increasing student achievement. The federal government provides grant money to the states for school breakfast (Here is Illinois: http://www.isbe.net/nutrition/htmls/breakfast_qa.htm) . The school nurse can partner with adminsitration and food services to acquire these grant dollars to provide a school breakfast program = increased health and achievement.

School Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice is available from the National Association of School Nurses. http://www.nasn.org

I liken school nursing to running a small business. You are usually the only person responsible for all aspects of the management of the office. As the only health care provider in the school and the only one cognizant of the laws that affect health care practice in any setting, you have to be pretty assertive and confident of your own knowledge base.

A recent survey showed that very few nurses are coaches or sponsors for clubs. When discussing this with others, the thought was that school nurses cannot usually be released from school early to travel to away games, that home visits were most often made after the end of the school day and that many of the special education IEP meetings were held after school hours. Sponsoring an after school program is possible, but those who had done this mentioned that they and their students were frequently interrupted by those sponsoring other activities wanting a nurse to step in with a child who had a minor injury, even though the school nurse was off the "school nurse clock".

MIDI · Aug 20, 2007

I Read That There Is A Program At Uic That Prepares People To Be School Nurse Practioners? What Is The Salary And Are They Hired By Dept Of Education? I Am Thinking About This Option