Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-01-16
THE. SCHOOL
nurse PROBLEM
Experience With Plan in this City
has Been satisfactory-will
be More Far-Rsoh-
ing.
PEOPLE NEED EDUCATING, TOO.
superintendent Kelly is Trying
Find a Suitable Successor
to Miss Gruhn.


lysis scare in this city has been sue
eessful. While not so far reach
ing in its scope as it will become in
time, it has in the main been salts
factory and will be continued, at
least this year.
Miss Hazel Gruhn, whose contract
I with the board expired January LIST,
1917, had considerable pioneering to
do as school nurse in this city where
the plan was entirely new. 1t takes
months and sometimes longer to edu-
rate all people that children with
sore Threats, wet feet. or aching
heads, must be cared for at once and
that home is the real place, or should
be, for those first aid remedies. Ac-
tual resentment is to be overcome in
exceptional cases, before the idea is
made clear that nothing in the
world but kindness and a great de-
sire to make the child well is behind
the fact that the child was sent
home from school and pronounced
iii.
Miss Gruhn did some excellent
work along this line, while encoun-
1tering opposition, as future nurses
will also encounter in any town or
city where the plan is new. A fill
thy, dirty home cannot make a sick
child we'll, and here the school nurse
finds her duties multiplied, for she
is actually having to dictate to an
s.as-good-as-you-are" American fami-
~ that they had better use some no.
water and soap on their premises,
and that is a delicate thing to do,
If not a delicate subject from a ON
d standpoint.
Supt. Kelly is en%deavoring to fill
Miss Gruhn's place upon the school
faculty by securing a competent wo-
nan with much experience in conta-
gion hospitals and may within a few
days be able to that he has
found such a woman. The follow
Ing extract from an article written
for The American City Magazine, by
= manager of the department of wei
fare and health at Spray, N. c., is a
most excellent one and should be
read by all school patrons:
"The following suggestions come
from the actual experience of nurses
engaged in school work. Many Of
them have been tried out in at least
one industrial community in the
South and have proved practical.
At the beginning of the school
year the nurse may assist the physi-
clan in making examinations of the
children. She can record the find
ings carefully and file them for fu-
ture reference, and also see that re-
Communications for treatment are
>f0I1owed up. In case no physician
is employed she may herself make
general examinations and may refer
defective children to proper sources
OF treatment, through their parents.
Subsequent examinations will enable
her to follow up the cases with such
additional emphasis as she can until
the necessary treatment has been
given the child. Examinations have
proved of but little value without the
thorough follow-up campaign.
The nurse may make a daily tour
of visitation to each of the class
rooms, and, with the cooperation of
the teacher, may study any children
suspected of being abnormal or de-
defective. This, of course, would
require close observation for varying
lengths of time, depending on the
case. During these tours she may
discover children suspected of hav-
ing infections or contagious diseases,
and she will know what to do i'm
mediately to protect the others and
prevent the spread of the disease.
Who would be in a better posi-
ton to consider the sanitary con
dition of the school and the grounds,
the cleanliness and ventilation of
the ~classrooms, and to make recon-
mendations regarding them? The
school nurse can arrange for person
al interviews with the girls and ad-
wise and instruct them in matters Of
personal hygiene and health. What
would be practically impossible for
the average teacher along this line
would be easy and natural for the
school nurse. She would be quail
fled to give lectures in the different
classrooms on pertinent health
themes and invite conferences with
Individual students. Such truths,
o.