The Best Medicine Is TLC
The Best Medicine Is TLC
“She’s not here just to put on Band-Aids,” says Julia Jorgensen, librarian at the high school where Heise is school nurse. “Band-Aids won’t fix what’s wrong with today’s high school students or today’s teacher.”
As students sign the daily log in her tiny office, Heise assesses their complaints for what’s not being said as much as what is. Though Jeremy Patrick’s physician attributed his frequent trips to Heise’s office to chronic fatigue and his dizziness to new-school nerves, Heise wasn’t convinced.
“You learn to be a detective. I knew something was not right,” says Heise, 54, who has worked at Central High School in Cape Girardeau, Mo., (pop. 35,349) since 1980. “I firmly believe in standing up for our kids and making them heard.”
Her repeated calls to Jeremy’s mother and physician paid off when the doctor discovered a 90-percent blocked artery in the boy’s chest.
“If it had closed,” Jeremy says. “I’d have been paralyzed from the waist down. She’s the most caring person. She’ll do anything to help you.”
To the student angered by another teacher, Heise offers mediation. To the prankster who stuck candy up his nose, she gives reassurance. For the quarterback’s upset stomach on “big game” day, she administers encouragement. She finds funding for a student needing glasses and a vacuum cleaner for a teen moving into an apartment.
“Their problems are so complex,” Heise says. “When I was in high school, I would never have thought of having a job, or trying to live on my own, or having a baby and juggling motherhood.”
Like 20,000 school nurses nationwide, Heise may be the only medical contact for some students or their families. Working as a liaison between physicians, parents, and the community, she connects student needs to organizations that can help.
“Some kids fall between the cracks,” Heise says. “If there’s a need, I get the money for whatever needs to be done.”
Students see Heise for splinters or labor contractions. She monitors medications and blood sugars. She assesses fractures and treats allergic reactions. Evaluating one student every seven minutes, she treats 10,000 over a school year. In addition, she screens for head lice, fills out 13-page assessments on new students, and conducts vision and scoliosis tests. With Cape Girardeau located so near the New Madrid fault, she also organizes earthquake drills.
Heise sponsors several student-run organizations. “Puppet Mania” dramatizes safety lessons to elementary students. High schoolers in PSI (Preventing Sexual Involvement) encourage abstinence among junior high teens. “Team Spirit” members educate peers against alcohol and drug use.
“Jeanne is a very pro-active nurse,” Principal Mike Cowan says. “She fills the role of adult confidante and she’s involved in support and intervention programs on our kids’ behalf.”
Heise serves on the Southeast Missouri Network Against Sexual Violence board. Rather than send victims to several agencies throughout the state, the volunteer-run center treats them in one location. She also quietly coordinates faculty and community donations for coats, shoes, or supplies students lack. She organizes food baskets and Christmas presents for needy students.
“She’d never tell you about two special education students who died in a house fire with their whole family,” says Bill Springer, English instructor. “She and their teacher raised money for their funerals and headstones. That goes beyond a school nurse’s job.”
Heise’s work day ends after follow-up phone calls, paperwork, and committee meetings. Even at home, puttering in her herb garden or weaving baskets, she’s available to Central High’s 1,200 students and faculty. Former students and grateful parents write notes; current students and faculty call her at home. While Heise refers their medical questions to doctors, her advice is tempered with the medicine they need most: tender, loving care.
“Nurse Heise is multidimensional,” Jorgensen says. “That’s what an extraordinary school nurse should be.”
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