When to send home?

[madison817]

Hello everyone! New school nurse here for a half boarding school (high school boarders, JK - HS population). I've done a few orientation days and I love it but I think it's challenging to know when to send a child home versus having them return to the health centre later on for reassessment. I think some things are obvious but the grey area ones, are the tricky ones. How do you discern? From what it looks like, you ask the parents what they want to do, but I imagine some parents won't be so informative or easily adaptable.

[MrNurse(x2), ADN]

Fever >101F, vomiting, diarrhea, pink eye (K-8). Basically, anything I don't want going through my school.

[Cattz, ADN]

There is information on general exclusions in the first few pages of this manual. Very basic and straightforward for a good place to start. http://health.mo.gov/living/families/schoolhealth/pdf/Communicable_Disease.pdf (this link has been really handy the last couple of days :)

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

Does your school have an exclusion policy? If so, use that as your guideline. There are some times that I'll ask parents what they'd like to do with their children, but that's usually only with children that are malingering a bit or parents that I know may kick a fuss that i didn't call. That way I won't have to hear about it later on. Trust me, there are scores of headache, stomachaches and sore throats that get told that they are ok, and need to return back to class.

Just curious because i've never worked a boarding school, what do you do with an ill boarder - to they return to their room or do they have to go to their actual home? or does it depend on the illness?

[madison817]

Does your school have an exclusion policy? If so, use that as your guideline. There are some times that I'll ask parents what they'd like to do with their children, but that's usually only with children that are malingering a bit or parents that I know may kick a fuss that i didn't call. That way I won't have to hear about it later on. Trust me, there are scores of headache, stomachaches and sore throats that get told that they are ok, and need to return back to class.

Just curious because i've never worked a boarding school, what do you do with an ill boarder - to they return to their room or do they have to go to their actual home? or does it depend on the illness?

Ill boarders would go to their actual home, if it is an international student they have a supporter (relative) nearby that they have to list, and if they don't have one of those, there is a program that they pay for that assigns them a supporter.

[nursetlm, ADN]

Cool job! Do you have to take call on evenings or weekends?

[madison817]

Cool job! Do you have to take call on evenings or weekends?

There is a nurse on staff until 7PM; overnight and on weekends the boarding staff who are not RNs have protocols to handle the really minor things, as the boarders are high school age. If necessary simply ask their family to pick them up and we reassess them on their return.