The challenges of being a school nurse have never been clearer than depicted in this picture of Rebecca Christensen presenting to her Baraboo, Wisconsin school board. As Nurse Christensen provides testimony at the board of education meeting to support continued public health mitigation strategies in the coming year, parents protest her request. One of the signs held up, but not visible in this photo, is “Masks are Child Abuse.”
Here is the original article that included the photo:
School nurses have fought the pandemic on multiple fronts. We have battled the invisible virus on the frontline of face-to-face school. We have battled the barrage of misinformation that spread as quickly as the virus to those who were getting their health news from conspiracy theorists and pseudo-scientists. We fought battle fatigue as the scope and length of the pandemic continued month after month.
As we plan for our 2021-2022 school year, the battle continues. I am typing the words “battle” and it is a chilling reminder of how weary we are from all that has happened and continues to happen. We will hold the line, centering safety based on public health measures. But why must we fight a portion of the public that does not believe us? Frankly, it is exhausting. Onward…
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Published by Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FNASN, FAAN
Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FNASN, FAAN, is a Nationally Certified School Nurse (NCSN), currently in her 22nd year as a New Jersey school nurse in the Camden City School District. Robin is the Director for New Jersey to the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) Board. She is proud to be a Johnson & Johnson School Health Leadership Fellow and past Program Mentor. Robin is the honored recipient of multiple awards for her work in school nursing and population health. These awards include, 2019 and 2020 National Association of School Nurses President’s Award, 2018 NCSN School Nurse of the Year, 2017 Johnson & Johnson School Nurse of the Year, and the New Jersey Department of Health 2017 Population Health Hero Award. Robin serves as faculty in the School Nurse Certificate Program at Rutgers University-Camden School of Nursing, where she teaches the next generation of school nurses. She was presented the 2018 Rutgers University – Camden Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award for Part-time Faculty. Robin writes a weekly blog called The Relentless School Nurse. She also writes a monthly column in My American Nurse, the official journal of the American Nurses Association. Robin’s work is included as a case study in The Future of Nursing Report 2020-2030. You can follow Robin on Twitter at @RobinCogan.
View all posts by Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FNASN, FAAN
