Age is just a number

I've had varying degrees of insulting comments thrown at me in my short stint as a school nurse so far. The vast majority have been from disgruntled parents, and I'm slowly learning ways to handle it better. (The best way is actually to avoid it completely by substituting snail mail communication for phone calls anytime whenever possible, but sometimes a phone call just can't be avoided.) Then there are the teachers that yell at me for interrupting their class, or emailing me their nasty thoughts on something I did not do just right. Then there is the aide that I encountered in the office, who, after overhearing me tell the attendance clerk how I wished I was present on the day someone broke his arm and started going into shock, asked me: "Are you qualified to handle that?"

Excuse me? Somehow, I resisted the temptation to respond with any of the sarcastic remarks that came to mind. (I'm sorry, are you a doctor? Because you're not even a teacher. Do you know what a nurse is? We hold the most positions in healthcare.) Instead, I clarified that I didn't think I was going to set a compound fracture on my own in the park, but yes, as a Registered Nurse (I made sure to throw in "registered") I am qualified to handle such an incident. Perhaps even more so than the yard duty who ended up having to handle the situation...

Sheesh. The attendance clerk mentioned afterward how much younger I am than what they expected when they were told they would be getting a new school nurse. She assured me they were pleasantly surprised to find someone young working in the office, but clearly it throws others off. And this is the conundrum of being a new nurse: at the same time you're floundering around because you are so new and un-knowing, you're trying to prove to everyone that you are perfectly capable of everything. [Tip: avoid asking questions or looking things up in the presence of non-nurses.]