In this month’s episode, Nursing Notes Live goes back to school with a look at school nurses. In our second episode this month we are joined by three school nurse leaders to discuss some of the rewards and challenges facing school nurses nationwide.

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Jamie:                         I’d like to start off with you, Mary Ann Gapinsky, tell us a little bit about your background in nursing, how did you get started as a nurse and what drew you into the career path of school nursing?

Mary Ann:                  Well, I started as most nurses do with a background in clinical nurse in a hospital study. I worked a variety of nursing specialties as a hospital nurse. But my primary love and passion had always been public health nursing but I shared that with my expertise in pediatrics. It seemed logical that school nursing combine the best of both worlds for me. So when a school nurse position opened up in my community, I applied for it and was very fortunate to get the position full-time and it opened me up to a world that I had no idea existed in nursing. It’s such a broad continuum of expertise that’s needed. It’s from generalist to specialist. I found that all of my skills will be challenged and I had a great opportunity to work with large populations and have a ripple down effect from children to their families to the community in this role. I fell in love with it and I can’t think of a better position for a nurse to have.

Jamie:                         It’s amazing the impact that school nurses have on their communities beyond just treating a kid’s boo-boo in the classroom at the elementary level or helping a student deal with a chronic illness all throughout their school career. There’s really a whole lot more to it than that. Sally, tell us a little bit about your background. I know you’re the interim Executive Director at the National Association of School Nurses but you’re a nurse and how did you get started as a nurse and then what drew you into school nursing?

Sally:                          I came from a family that had a really deep connection with medicine and nursing. It was a very logical thing for me to become a nurse. I enjoy taking care of people and it really was definitely something that just fit my path and would fit with my personality. What I loved about nursing is just that you could get a medical diagnosis for something but then a nurse would help you learn how to live with that diagnosis and could really treat the whole person and I just love that aspect. School nursing appealed to me so much because I’ve always enjoyed having a real wellness focused to my practice. School nursing really gave me a chance to use preventative measures as a focus as well as educating people around me. It’s a very autonomous practice being a school nurse. You could be independent in what you do and that appealed to me. But something Mary Ann alluded to is I’ve always really enjoyed the relationship. A lot of times, if you’re in acute care, your patients come and go and you see them for a very short amount of time. In school nursing, you have the opportunity to create relationships over time and often you know the big brother of the student that you have and you’ve known their mom for years. What that does, is it gives you just this sense of trust and collaboration and it really enhances your practice. It makes it a very special thing.

Mary Ann:                  I’d like to add something to that Sally just mentioned is this seeing a child ov...