Health Work in the Public SchoolsAyres, Leonard Porter
Science
Health Work in the Public Schools
Ayres, Leonard Porter
Public schools -- Ohio -- Cleveland; Schools -- Medical examinations
The value of the school nurse is one feature of medical inspection of
schools about which there is no division of opinion. Her services have
abundantly demonstrated their utility, and her employment has quite
passed the experimental stage. The introduction of the trained nurse
into the service of education has been rapid, and few school
innovations have met with such widespread support and enthusiastic
approval.
The reason for this is that the school nurse supplies the motive force
which makes medical inspection effective. The school physician's
discovery of defects and diseases is of little use if the result is
only the entering of the fact on the record card or the exclusion of
the child from school. The notice sent to parents telling of the
child's condition and advising that the family physician be consulted,
represents wasted effort if the parents fail to realize the import of
the notification or if there be no family physician to consult. If the
physical examination has for its only result the entering of words
upon record cards, then pediculosis and tuberculosis are of precisely
equal importance. The nurse avoids such ineffective lost motions by
converting them into efficient functioning through assisting the
physician in his examinations, personally following up the cases to
insure remedial action, and educating teachers, children, and parents
in practical applied hygiene.
Some idea of the work of the school nurses in Cleveland may be gained
from the following record of what one nurse did during one day while
the survey was in progress. It represents a typical day's work for a
typical nurse and is not especially unusual.
8:30 A. M.
Home call to get permission to take child to school
headquarters for mental examination.
Called at Case-Woodland School to examine child with sore
throat.
Took a child home to have mother clean her up.
Called at Harmon School.
Treated 10 cases of impetigo, three of toothache, two of
ringworm.
Took two children home to be cleaned up.
Inspected 50 children.
Gave health talk.
Tried to locate a boy who is to attend partial blind class
at Harmon School.
Found boy was transferred from Harmon School to Marion
School last year.
Called at Marion School but found no trace of boy.
Called at address to which child was supposed to have moved;
no such number.
Called at Kennard School to see if Miss O'Neill remembered
him at Marion School; found no trace of him.
Called at two homes in regard to enlarged tonsils and
defective vision.
1:15 P. M.
Mayflower School: boy with sprained ankle, soaked in hot
water, strapped with adhesive.
Treated four cases of impetigo, one cut finger, opened two
boils.
Conference with mother at school.
Instructed her in case of child's discharging ear.
Inspected 62 children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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