It was past 1:30 p.m. and Bobbi Pointer, school nurse at Hopkins High School, had just found time to eat some lunch.
She'd spent the morning running between students needing care, at one point all at once.
"There were probably about 10 kids needing something just at that time," Pointer said.
This school year the school's health services office - staffed for the most part by Pointer and a paraprofessional - have been seeing about 75 students a day, up from the usual 40-60 for this time of year.
Pointer, who's also an emergency room nurse in Waconia, thrives off the pace. She lives the life of a school nurse and that means working in an environment that mirrors the larger society with all its complexities and challenges.
"I think the thing that people need to know is we're not just about Band-Aids and runny noses any more," Pointer said.
As a school nurse she provides a catch-all service and sees students and staff with health needs that run the gamut from colds to diabetes to mental health crises to those who have asthma or a range of disorders and diseases. Don't forget first aid.
"We're really generalists," Pointer said.
This year Pointer was named the 2009 School Nurse of the Year by the School Nurse Organization Board of Directors. The award is given to one school nurse annually in Minnesota who shows excellence in school nursing practice and leadership in school health.
Pointer started at Hopkins High in 2001, after first starting as a school nurse in 1999 in Minneapolis. She spent six years on the board of Teens Alone, a community organization that offers free counseling and referral services to youth and families.
Over the years, she's seen changes in some of the issues facing students, especially involving the number of uninsured students and those with unmet mental health needs.
While there have always been mental health problems, students are having to face them in a school setting more often than a couple decades ago, she said.
"They didn't go to school, so they weren't in school," Pointer said of students with mental health needs 20-some years ago. "Now everybody goes to school."
And teaching students, she said, requires that they be healthy.
"How do you teach a kid when oftentimes they're so depressed that they can't get out of bed in the morning?" Pointer said.
The H1N1 flu hasn't hit Hopkins schools yet to her knowledge but nearly everyone who comes in the nurse's office gets their temperature taken. So far she's been assuring students that a cold without a fever isn't reason to worry about the flu.
The effects of health care policy, even the blow felt when a local clinic closes, aren't abstract ideas when students come in without insurance or have parents who struggle to get off work to give them rides to a doctor's office.
"To take an afternoon off to take a student to the doctor is really hard," she said.
Working with outside organizations - for example, to help students who can't afford glasses get them - is essential to her work.
Pointer said that high on her list of skills it takes to be a school nurse are building relationships, having compassion and thinking on her feet. The ability to put oneself in another's shoes runs throughout what she does.
Health services space in Hopkins High School consists mainly of a reception area, restrooms, a catch-all examination room, a room with cots and a furnished room that can be used to see patients.
Pointer said the busiest time for her office is usually January through March.
This year is odd.
"For some reason there's a lot going around now," she said.
While the Hopkins School District has nurses at each of its schools, in some districts the nurse travels between schools, aided by paraprofessional at each, Pointer said.
When students come to the nurse's office, much of what Pointer does is try to give students and staff reasons for what she's doing and ways they can evaluate themselves - not just saying they're fine and sending them right back to class.
"It's constantly helping kids and staff know what they need to look for," Pointer said.
Conversations are kept confidential unless a person's safety is at risk, she said. Those conversations about reproductive health or mental health are especially sensitive in that regard. She tells parents that it's better to have students talking to professionals than friends for advice on those topics.
Still, as a jane of all trades, Pointer gets to know students and families, and what it takes to keep kids healthy.
It's an effort that continues to demand resources and time - and Pointer says for her there is no such thing as a typical day.
"Society is really mirrored in a school. So everything in a school has gotten more complex," Pointer said.
