No, Your Child’s School Nurse is Not Secretly Also a Surgeon

One-third of schools in the U.S. don’t have a full-time school nurse. We have a youth mental health crisis in this country. More children have chronic diseases, like asthma, allergies, and diabetes, than ever before. Children with complex chronic conditions have medical needs like frequent medications and tube feeds. And guess what? They go to school. On top of all of that, kids still fall off the monkey bars, get tummy aches and headaches, and need lice checks. School nurses are BUSY. 

At the beginning of each school year parents have to fill out and sign forms indicating what over-the-counter medications the school nurse can give their child. Typical options include acetaminophen, ibuprofen, TUMS, and antibiotic ointment. And then there are the kids with rescue inhalers for asthma and epi-pens for allergies. New forms every school year, new devices, checking expiration dates. Sometimes flu shots are offered at schools. Sometimes dental screenings are offered. All of this requires consent from parents. Paperwork, paperwork, and then more paperwork. (Which, by the way, is a good thing.)

But yeah, sure, Donald, in between all of that school nurses are also performing unauthorized, covert, gender-affirming surgery on minors during the school day. I heard that usually, the front desk person scrubs in as the first assistant. And either the music teacher or PE teacher is the OR circulator. Because of the complex understanding of physiology and airway anatomy required to perform pediatric anesthesia, they usually leave that job to one of the science teachers. They clean the surgical instruments in the cafeteria dishwasher, of course. And they wheel the post-op kids out to the bus on one of those wheelie desk chairs. Their seatmate is instructed to let the driver know if the kid falls asleep and obstructs their airway.