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.