On paper, I have only ever been a pediatric ICU nurse ever since I started in this profession almost 15 years ago. But I have realized more and more over time that we can wear so many hats, once entrusted with our licensure, and this is an incredible privilege and responsibility.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to be a camp nurse for the second time at a week-long sleepaway camp for children ages 6-11 with any degree of exposure to the foster system. Many of the psych/social/spiritual experiences this time were similar to my first experience doing this in 2019. 

But my experience and challenges as a nurse continued to grow in breadth and depth. Not only was I once again tending to scrapes and splinters for kids at camp, but I was also able to bring my ICU nurse experience to know how to initially treat and monitor a child who might have suffered a concussion or even a small head bleed.

On the last morning, as we were packing everyone’s things up, I was called over to the swings to help a little boy who had flown off the swing and hit his head on the ground. He was crying in pain, and I noticed a small excoriation at the top of his head.

I immediately went into ICU nurse mentality. We moved him to the nurses’ station and immediately applied an ice pack. Someone wanted to lay him down on the reclining bed, but I insisted he needed to have his head elevated to at least 30 degrees. We gave him some Tylenol for the pain, but in my head, I was being otherwise very cautious about how much we were allowing him to take by mouth in that immediate period after his injury. I didn’t want to contribute to any nausea or vomiting, which could increase any pressure in his head. 

As people were comforting him, I was watching him closely to make sure he didn’t seem dizzy or have any sort of altered mental status. After about 20 minutes, he said he felt better and wanted to join the other children in the chapel for closing camp activities. I watched his gait and saw he was steady on his feet. I asked him to please alert an adult if he felt at all dizzy or nauseous. Thankfully, he ended up ok, but part of me remained on alert in case he showed signs of any head bleed.

The other side of nursing that came out during this camp was unfortunately the part that makes us mandated reporters – the part that has to always be looking out for signs of child abuse. There was a pair of siblings who, as the week went on, made some concerning statements regarding the foster home they were in. Ultimately, we decided together with our camp directors and social workers, to call DCFS and report these statements. I wasn’t perfect in my assessment or the most timely response to the kids’ statements. I realized I could and should have gently pulled the kids aside in the immediate moments I felt red flags go up, to gently inquire about what I was seeing and hearing from them. Thankfully, as a team we were able to work together and gather enough information from the kids to make the call to DCFS before camp ended. But I learned how I myself could have gently probed for more information instead of discarding the red flags I noticed as “probably nothing.”  “Can you tell me more about these marks on your body? Can you tell me more about what you meant when you said X, Y, and Z?” 

Camp nursing, in probably its best moments, is all about treating scrapes and splinters. Giving medications for asthma or allergies. But it can also include much more serious scenarios, and we nurses can never let our guards down. Sometimes it’s just a scrape, but other times it could be an entire life.