This averaged out to 40 to 50 students per day. To this equation add at least 20 medications daily, an emergency or two, and still find time to squeeze in mandated screenings and charting on more than 400 students. School Nurses Provide Range of Services School nursing has changed since most of us were in school, and even more since the first school health program began in Boston, MA, in 1894. Back then, school nurses were employed to find and exclude students with communicable diseases. Today, school nurses function as public health nurses for the school population, providing nursing care that once was provided only in the acute care setting.
School nurses use their clinical and assessment skills in a community setting.
It is not uncommon today for nurses to provide trach and ventilator care, catheterize, and monitor blood glucose levels in addition to the regular medication administrations and health screenings. The school nurse helps many medically compromised students participate in a normal school experience. The upside of school nursing is that there is time to develop continuity of care and long-standing relationships with students, their families, and the school staff. No two days are alike. The school nurse may deal with an anaphylactic reaction, fractures, head injuries, asthma attacks, or insulin reactions one day and nothing more serious than the sniffles on the next day.