For this assignment, a nurse from the local public school was interviewed to review the difficulties of the profession. She has been working as a school nurse for five years and has gained considerable experience. Some of the major issues in school nursing that she experienced were high pressure, especially due to the recent pandemic, and dealing with students that are simulating illness.
In her words, “there is an enormous quantity of responsibilities and care to provide. I regularly receive literally hundreds of calls from parents and caregivers. There are not enough hours in the day that would allow me to address every task and responsibility.” The most pressing issue, according to the interviewed nurse, is conflict management with parents. In any given context of the student getting ill, nurses often have to deal with the complaints of parents and legal guardians. They are in constant turmoil due to the fact that their child could have gotten sick or hurt on the school grounds. She said, “This somehow makes us the care providers within the said grounds the perpetrators.”
The literature acknowledges the fact that school nurses constantly have to deal with conflict resolution. School nurse managers should investigate the source of conflict and help to mitigate it especially given that the offense may have no legal grounds (Selekman et al., 2019). At the same time, managers should define accountability and encourage negotiation or compromise (Selekman et al., 2019). In the working context, nurses may encounter barriers toward a resolution that involves a lack of time for identification and resolution (Selekman et al., 2019). Power imbalances may lead to real or perceived intimidation of nurses that will result in avoidance of conflict or lack of motivation (Selekman et al., 2019). Thus, it is evident that nurses should work with their managers to resolve any conflict associated with parents’ complaints and define their responsibilities and actions clearly for transparent accountability.
Reference
Selekman, J., Shannon, A. R., Yonkaitis, F. C. (2019). School Nursing: A Comprehensive Text. F.A. Davis