School Nurses and EAPs - partners in sports emergency care

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the @pit crew podcast. This high energy show dives deep into the world of sports emergency care. Join us as we explore cutting edge strategies, real world experiences and expert insights to help you step up your game in emergency care. We've got the tools, tips and stories you need to be ready when seconds matter. It's time for the @pit crew podcast. We have the green light in three, two, one. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Welcome to the @pit crew podcast. I'm Ray Castle, host today and as we're wrapping up, we're here in Arkansas at Cabot High School for the Arkansas Secondary School Interprofessional Sports Emergency Care course. Have a pleasure to get to know and have the work Today with Cherie McDonald who is with the Arkansas School Nurses Association. So welcome. Thank you for being here today. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [00:00:55] Speaker B: She was a part of being some of the part of the topics and we had a chance to talk today and really the thing I've really grown. I said that before. And her closing comments was first off, you're back. Tell the audience what you do. And with the Department of Education. [00:01:10] Speaker C: Department of Education, Yes. I work for the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education and I oversee school nursing services. I'm the state school nurse consultant with them and work with basically making sure that nurses have every resource available for education, training, implementation, policy, whatever to best serve kids. [00:01:31] Speaker B: Yep, we're doing the same thing. Every state's doing the same thing. I think the one thing that I got, I mentioned this earlier and even on the panel closing out, one thing I have an appreciation for, really, really have enjoyed listening is and also seeing is what the level of engagement that state nurses, school nurses have in this process of emergency medicine, of everything we have going on. It's just one important piece of this cog and especially in rural areas where you may not have we typically have an athletic trainer but having it still has to have someone medically trained who being part of that process. But you have another resource that some people don't think of. You're there during school. And that's what I said partially it's probably thought of is the misnomers nurses that are in student school, they only do one thing and it's not the case. [00:02:20] Speaker C: It's really not. Not in the rural areas because often, like I said, there's not an athletic trainer. So if you have a student that has any kind of health issue or just they need someone to go on athletic events, school nurses sometimes ask to do that and of course she knows that he or she knows their social gift, their chronic health conditions. They know, they know the students really well because they have to get all that information at the beginning of the year really do a healthy for all students. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Then you have the athletic physical which is a different. Which is a different beast in itself and you want to make sure everybody's communicating so you have a resource there. [00:02:55] Speaker C: They're coordinating those athletic physicals often where again there's not an athletic trainer. They're the ones that are doing that communication. [00:03:02] Speaker B: So what has been the one thing you like from today? I know that the School Nursing association you are part of the Sports Medicine Advisory Advisory Committee or the overall committee. [00:03:12] Speaker C: I am, yes. The department of Ed. [00:03:16] Speaker B: Are there. And what's some of the take home like a take home point that you saw today that you thought was just like I didn't. Hadn't thought of this from a perspective from an athletic response that will help when you go back and you talk with other department department. But also it articulates out to school nurses. [00:03:35] Speaker C: I think to really get with their coaches and with their. Those that have athletic trainers or if they don't have an athletic trainer how important it is to be involved and to help them to figure out their emergency action plan and work with their local resources like ems. I think that that's going to be really important as we move forward to do that because they might not know that an EAP exactly what that was. But I think that we're going to get that word out to school nurses exactly what that was. [00:04:05] Speaker B: And it's very different. And it's very different. It's very different than that. I'm going to say from 7:30 to 3:00 you have there and then you. Everything else happens after that and that's a very different. You have. You don't know where students are, the practice they're running around. Especially something happens as a. If we're a mass casualty, you know something threat to the school, it may happen and everybody needs to know what their role is. And it's not just you may be there part of the time but how that integrates with overall resources. [00:04:35] Speaker C: Yeah. And the sports Medical Advisory committee has been really good to work with like with athletic trainers because a lot of the school nurses have trained the athletic trainers on medication administration based off that student's health history. So they have certain or specific things that for Arkansas they have to be like we have legislated that they have to be trained in certain areas. So and I've worked with that the state athletic training association to make sure that we put that information out last year and we worked together. And so often when the nurse is not there, it's training the coach to do something or training some other person that's involved, maybe even a volunteer coach or whoever. But you're training people to. To oversee that student's needs when they're away. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Communicate. Yeah, educate. Go back and communicate some more and work together and work in the same boat. Yep. As well. So the last thing is you or two questions. One is you were. I know you came around some of the labs you were working doing some lab sessions. What's some of the things you got out? One or two things from the lab, the four lab sessions we had today? [00:05:40] Speaker C: Well, two things I can think of right off the top of my head was the ice bag. I was so amazed with that. I did not the cold with the heat with it for the heat illness. So to have the bag instead of. [00:05:51] Speaker B: Having a disaster response bag, instead of having a tub saving be taken anywhere. [00:05:56] Speaker C: Almost and easily accessible. So I really was impressed with that because I didn't have any idea about that, honestly. And I did not know on face masks that you have this little punch hole that will pop out. I mean even though they can get stuck, I didn't realize that, you know what, they weren't all screws and they can get rusty. [00:06:13] Speaker B: That becomes even problematic as well. So. [00:06:15] Speaker C: Yeah, good. [00:06:15] Speaker B: We got two things we learned. [00:06:17] Speaker C: I did learn and I loved it. [00:06:19] Speaker B: That just goes back. We've had different group. You know, we had those. Those labs we had. We may have emergency room physician. Like I was doing one lab on the Gerson heat illness at the emergency room physician who's also director of ems. We had the EMS supervisor and we fired EMS supervisor. So we had to see that kind of. And all the labs were like that having just a general perspective, different perspectives of interprofessional activity and how that happened. So. So last question is what's a. We'd love to close the show out. What's a fun fact that we may not know about. About him? [00:06:51] Speaker C: A fun fact. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:53] Speaker C: I grew up in a hardware and lumber store my daddy had and owned. And so I love to smell a kind and so when I get really stressed out, I want to smell woods and lumber. [00:07:03] Speaker B: We seeing you at Home Depot the local every time hanging out there. Where are you? Okay, I'll know now when the next time you see there. What are you doing? I'm just smelling it. [00:07:10] Speaker C: I'm just like it's call me as. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Well that's that's a great fun fact. So again, as we wrap this up, thank you again. Appreciate you taking time at the end of the day and also being here and definitely look forward to communicating and talking with you again in the future. [00:07:25] Speaker C: Forward to it. I really want you all to come back and I really want to do. [00:07:27] Speaker B: Some more barbecue here. We got stuff in Louisiana. So with that in mind, thank you again. Audience. Sharia McDonald we hear that Arkansas Secondary School Interprofessional Sports Emergency Care Course. I'm Ray Castle and we are out of here. [00:07:48] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us on the @Picrew podcast. We encourage you to to like subscribe and join our community. For more information about this podcast show, visit www.actionmed.co backslash podcast. This show is a production of Action Medical Consultants. The medical information provided within this program reflects the opinions of the hosts and guests and is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It should not be considered as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the guidance of your healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment.