Winter camp RN

Hi, welcome to the camp nursing forum

Absolutely read the Basics of Camp Nursing, it's great. Another book is Camp Nursing Concentric Circles of Care, the author escapes me at the moment.

I know the first instinct is to jump into first aid and disaster thinking. The truth is that if your camp is well run with a culture of safety such events should be rare to non existent. Absolutely know your way around a splint, and familiarize yourself with the Ottawa ankle rules. Make sure you have a jump bag with basic first aid stuff and that the emergency plan, that should already be in place, is understood by you and everyone. Be familiar with emergency equipment and drugs you will be expected to give, you know watch the training video on the AED and EPI pen if you have them.

The big things that I would hope are already taken care of, or at least well thought out, are the basic nursing stuff. Do you have functional charts with parental permissions, and authorization to treat? Do you have a set of signed physician orders if you plan on providing care beyond the first aid level? Is there a system for receiving medications from home, processing them, and administering them that is as easy and fool proof as possible? Who is reviewing charts and calling parents to clarify questions before the campers arrive, those parents try and sneak some strange things on camp without telling you.

Other smaller things like your time off any staff you will be working with or supervising, and getting a health office set up and running are also on the radar. I assume that these are already taken care of by your camp director, but its always good to check.

feel free to shoot me an email if you want to talk I'm at [email protected]

Good Luck

Alex

Enjoy reading your responses in this room, like the respondent who answers all the MDS questions. And the school nurses are DA BOMB!

Great informative readings for those of us who are pretty much isolated in our own little nook/cranny of practice.

I'd also recommend a wilderness first aid course rather than just a basic first aid course depending on your camps location and what level of training the counseling staff have.