Emergency Rooms Prepared Nurse For Challenges Of School Nursing

A nurse will be recognized for her outstanding professionalism in her field at the Nightingale Awards ceremony at the Mystic Marriot tonight.

Teresa Fields has been working for as a school nurse for 18 years, first as a substitute nurse and then a floating nurse until she was placed in the high school in 2008. She began at Ledyard Center School this year.

“I am very honored,” she said of the news. “They don’t just give this award to anybody.”

Before working in Ledyard, Fields spent 15 years stationed in emergency rooms, intensive care units and the open heart recovery room, which prepared her for the challenges of school nursing.

“When kids have problems, I know the right questions to ask,” she said. “I feel much more confident in this setting, having had that experience. You’re really on your own as far as making decisions on the spot.”

Fields said she typically sees 40-60 students a day with any number of conditions. Allergies and asthma are high on her radar this season, she said, but everyday is different.

“I get to be a mom for all of these kids. They come in with their boo-boos and I get give them the tender loving care they need.

As an emergency room nurse she sometimes dismissed the advice or notes made by school nurses.

“I have eaten my words so many times, my eyes have been opened,” she said.

VNA Supervisor Karen Goetchius said Fields’ “commitment to Ledyard students’ health and well-being, no matter what age, is reflected in her daily professionalism and her wonderful sense of humor.”

Fields said nursing has changed a lot over the years with computerized records, advanced diagnostics, treatments and research. In the schools, she said she is giving out less medicine thanks to time-release pills and the state’s special needs education mandates have allowed her to treat conditions that are more severe.

“You never know what’s going to come through the door,” she said. “We get to see a little bit everything here.”

Fields has been a volunteer in the physical exam clinics for the Ledyard Volunteer Emergency Services for six years and is also on the health and wellness committee, which ensures that school meals are healthy.

She said the committee worked to take all the junk food out of school vending machines. She’s also working on finding cleaning alternatives to bleach and ammonia, which are now prohibited from public schools. Fields said she is also collecting donations of elementary student-sized sweat pants for those who may need to change at some point in the day.

Fields said she’s bringing her husband, her son and daughter-in-law to the awards ceremony and co-workers will join them at the table.

“Everybody I know who has been nominated really deserves it,” she said. I was surprised, you have to be a special person to get it.”