The Relentless School Nurse: What Happened at School Today – Chris Amidon, BSN, RN, NCSN

Chris Amidon, BSN, RN, NCSN is an Indiana school nurse and NASN Director! She is one of my Twitter buddies and a co-creator of the #SchoolNurseChat and #SchoolHealthChat. Here is a link to Chris’s guest blog post from several months ago:

The Relentless School Nurse: Chris Amidon is “Not Throwing Away Her Shot”

Read about #WhatHappenedAtSchoolToday for Chris!

Hi! Actually took a couple vacation days with my husband. We are in Charleston and it’s so gorgeous! So I have a What Happened on Tuesday! We had a blood drive and kids were so proud of themselves for donating-even kids I know well because they have health or mental health issues. It was wonderful and I donated with them. – Chris Amidon, BSN, RN, NCSN

Workload: We are a small town, not quite urban, Suburban, nor rural! Crawfordsville is an hour west of Indianapolis. We have about 740 students, 9-12th grade. I also coordinate health services for the rest of our district, which has about 2,400 students and 6 RNs total.

They all gave permission for their photos to be used on social media.

Read Chris’s Bio:

I grew up in St. Louis. When I was 4 years old, I told my parents I was going to be “a nurse for little kids.” I’m not sure how I knew what that even was!

I graduated from DePauw University’s School of Nursing in 1987. I first worked in a busy ER at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, which was an excellent experience, but I found I missed finding out what happened to people who’d been in that accident or had that heart attack. I went to work in home health care in the small town where we had moved as newlyweds in 1987, Crawfordsville, IN. I enjoyed long-term relationships with patients and working so independently.

When it became apparent we were going to continue to live in this small town, I became aware of school nursing and it opened the door for me to finally be a nurse for kids! I’ve been with the school system for 20 years now.