The School Nurse
School nurses training goes beyond an apple a day, according to a short report by WCTV.com (Florida):
“Teachers are not equipped and don’t have the staff to handle it and so the school nurse winds up being the one that’s there to make sure these students get the help they need or to refer out,” said Pam Mezzinam, Program Coordinator for Big Bend Hospice’s Caring Tree Program.
“We see a wide variety of problems that are occurring.. more chronic disease, more autism, just emotional issues those kinds of things,” said Leila Thompson, Madison County Health Department’s Senior LPN for the School Health Program.
I’ve unfortunately had more than my share of difficult moments with school nurses, usually in the form of painful exchanges over my cell phone. In his previous school district, my son’s behavior problems resulted too often in injury too himself and I got too used to hearing that “Charlie bumped his head and I applied ice.” Since Charlie’s verbal skills are very limited, he was not able to tell the nurse if he had a headache or stomachache or felt sick; vision and other screenings meant that I would receive a form with “results inconclusive, unable to test” written on it and a request to see a specialist.
We still take Charlie to a special needs optometrist to check his eyes and are glad to drive to Pennsylvania to take him to the pediatric neurologist. I decided to try to start things on the right foot with the nurse at Charlie’s school last fall and sent the school nurse information about autism and some of Charlie’s behaviors so she could get a sense of why he might be doing these things. I also met with the nurse, and Charlie’s teacher made a point of talking to her about autism.
Charlie got a cold maybe once or twice this past school year. He rarely saw the nurse: Two times this happened because he just couldn’t stay awake in class and his teacher wanted to make sure that he was not coming down with something. He went to the nurse’s office and lay down on a cot for a few minutes.
Then he asked to go back to his classroom.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, Education, Health, health blog, nurse, pdd-nos, school, school blog, school nurse
5 opinions for The School Nurse
Jen
Jun 12, 2008 at 5:09 am
We don’t even have school-based nurses anymore in Ontario- I believe that they were removed in the 80s. About the best that happens now in terms of medical care in the schools are public-health based programs (vaccinations etc) that occasionally reach the individual schools.
Storkdok
Jun 12, 2008 at 7:00 am
I just spent three days last week in the nurse’s office at school because Alex was getting severe migraine headaches, presumably from a medication change and dehydration. She has been working very well with us and his aide. This was the first time he spent in the nurse’s office for something other than a scrape.
Linda
Jun 12, 2008 at 8:18 am
The dreaded call from the school nurse. Stops the workplace cold, strikes fear in the parent’s heart. Many of the calls are CYA for the school department. My favorite call was the middle school nurse calling me to say son #1 had fallen on his wrist while playing basketball in gym; perhaps I should take him to get x-rayed? I asked her what she would do if it were her son, after a pause she said, “I’d wait until the morning and see if it fell off”. Wise woman.
Son #2 LOVED visiting the school nurse for kleenex, chats, etc. I’m glad we have them in our town.
Synesthesia
Jun 12, 2008 at 9:22 am
I wish they had something like that when I was in school. I’ve had trouble staying awake in class at least since Jr high and through college. I had to see counsellors and doctors and everything.
Sarah
Jun 12, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It’s great that Charlie has an optometrist who deals with special needs. I wish they had something like this for adults.
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