Middle School Nurse Observation

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During many years the role of school nurse was traditionally viewed as one where the nurse cared for students that were injured, applied bandages and gave out ice bags. Throughout the years the role of the school nurse has evolved into one of leadership and management along with many other duties including traditional roles as mentioned above. The services provided by a school nurse range from assessment and screening to coordinating care for regular students as well as students with special needs. School nursing requires experience and knowledge in school, public, community and emergency health to meet the many needs of school aged children and youth. The school nurse provides many services but the basic services provided include illness and injury assessment and interventions, medication administration, screenings for health factors, disease management, health education, and preparing individual education plans for students.

Role of Nurse

The school nurse has many responsibilities, foremost the nurse is accountable for promoting and protecting the health of the students and staff at the school. The nurse is able to fulfill this task by screening the students for health factors such as vision and hearing and providing staff in-services for special health considerations and promoting healthy activities. Screening and assessing the students also meets the state requirement that mandates the nurse to make a yearly report of hearing, screening and immunization records for every student. Furthermore, the nurse advocates for students health and safety by working with other staff members and creating individual education plans for students with mental health needs, chronic and long term illnesses and provides health counseling ...

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...ate. The pressure to meet different requirements by different administrations, teaching many health education topics and dealing with school-age children make the school nurse job very challenging and proves to be far from the idea that school nurses are only responsible for treating student’s injuries.

Works Cited

Arizona Department of Health Services. (2011). Office for children with special health care needs: School nursing. Retrieved from http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/ocshcn/school_ nursing_az.htm

Chikani, V., & Plonski-Fuqua, B. (2006). Arizona school nurse resource survey summary. Retrieved from www.azdhs.gov/phs/ocshcn/pdfs_files/7-12-06-school nurse-survey-report.pdf

Perry, S., Hockenberry, M., Lowdermilk, D., & Wilson, D. (2010). The School-Age Children and Family. Maternal child nursing care (4th ed., p. 1093). Maryland Heights, Mo. Mosby Elsevier.

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