Читать книгу Confessions of a School Nurse - Michael Alexander - Страница 17

Generally, dealing with big issues is easier, because you know it’s bad, and you know you’re going to need outside help. Perhaps that sounds odd, but there’s no uncertainty. So much of what I see is subjective, and while kids aren’t necessarily dishonest, no one is immune to playing the system.

It doesn’t matter that 95 per cent of our students are either very wealthy or ridiculously wealthy, because they’re all the same. They’re young, impressionable, tricky, manipulative, cocky, embarrassing, awkward, fun, scared, compassionate, and clever. They’re capable of anything, even fooling their favourite nurse, although I do try to catch them out when I can.

Skipping class or PE is built into their DNA, and there’s no better way to achieve this goal than to pull a sickie. After my first year on the job, I’d learned, adapted, and implemented various techniques and tactics to spot the genuine from the fakes.

 1. The Positive Make-Up Test.

 2. Do they have a test in class? You need to be specific with your question: kids will say ‘No’ but get in trouble for not handing in their assignment or presentation, and when confronted with this say, ‘But you asked if I had a test, not an assignment.’ I always ask the full spectrum: ‘Do you have a test, assignment, homework, presentation, or anything else in class that needs to be done today, at this moment in time?’

 3. How do they answer question 2? If they start the conversation with ‘I don’t have anything important in class today’ I know where this is going. It sounds planned – and sick people are usually feeling too miserable to plan their escape.

 4. Check with their dorm parent to see if they really were sick the night before.

 5. Check the records to see if they’re regularly missing a particular class, PE and Maths are particularly common.

 6. Obtain as much physical data as possible. Temperature, pulse, blood pressure, bowel sounds, pallor, obvious nasal congestion, lung sounds – and document it all. By tomorrow you won’t remember if they’ve had a cold for one day or one week, because you’ve seen so many students, and kids aren’t the best historians, especially when they’re lying.

Reading this back, it looks like I’m more of a detective than a nurse, but if that is so, then I’m the most lenient one around. It’s hard to say ‘no’ to a desperate kid, although I can and will when required. And that’s the problem with medical assessments – often the symptoms are subjective. It’s much easier with injuries; give me a simple break, cut or bruise anytime.