The Relentless School Nurse: There are 56 Million Reasons to Have a School Nurse in Every School – Here is Just One

Vickie Crews, one of my former Rutgers Camden Nursing school nursing students, shared this message with me about one of her colleagues:

FYI, one of our district nurses, Dorrie Uscinowicz picked up on a student’s high blood pressure during a screening. It turns out the student has kidney cancer. Mom is so grateful she is telling everyone. 6ABC is going to interview her this afternoon and it will air at 4:30! School nurses featured in the media! Thought you would want to know about this story!

South Jersey 9-year-old thanks school nurse for saving her life

I am grateful to an astute school nurse who, in the course of a very routine student screening, discovered a concerning finding that required immediate attention. I am thankful to my former student, now colleague, Vickie Crews for sharing this story with me.  In our school nurse certificate program, we discuss how important it is to tell our school nursing stories so that the public and even our own school communities understand the scope of our work. Saving a life, one screening at a time is reason enough, but actually, there are 56 million* reasons to have a school nurse present all day, every day. In this one student’s case, it was life-saving. Congratulations school nurse Dorrie Uscinowicz, the Voorhees School District is fortunate to have you! 

56 million* denotes the number of students enrolled in K-12 schools both public and private in 2020: https://educationdata.org/k12-enrollment-statistics