Oct 13, 2026 · 47 min · 13 segments
What topic would you like discussed? Text us! Dr. Pistiner is board certified in pediatrics and in allergy and immunology, and he is the Director of…
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Michael-Pistiner-cf2389c617d647b5a891e25c02557153.jpg)
Michael PistinerGuest
Alice HoytHost
I am a huge advocate for schools having a nurse on campus the entire day, the entire day.
Sometimes I hear these stories about a school nurse who is covering five schools, five schools.
How is one nurse supposed to cover five schools? And then inevitably what ends up happening is, of course, our kiddos who have the most medical needs, they are the one who are getting the attention from the nurse and those children need that attention, right? But if the priority is having limited school nursing resource instead of let's have somebody on site the entire time, not just that, let's have a team for the nurse to rely on.
the medically inclined, right? The first responder inclined, sometimes like not to characterize, but sometimes the coaches, like they're used to dealing with injuries.
Somebody who's a Boy Scout troop leader, a Girl Scout troop leader, Those are the types of people that you want helping that nurse respond when there is a medical emergency.
I think being a school nurse is one of the hardest jobs, especially one of the hardest jobs in health care, because you are the only medical person on that campus, right? And for the most part, things are chill.
You are not the one at the end of the day making the decisions, right? It's the administration.
But then when the poo-poo hits the fan, all eyes are on you as the nurse and you got to perform.
So yes, to your point, we as allergists, pediatricians, we need to do everything we can to empower our school personnel who are caring for our patients during the day to be prepared to prevent an allergic reaction from happening, right? Like that's like...
Make sure people know how to recognize a reaction and respond to it and know what to do in that response.
Like, no, what I recommend to schools is that any kiddo who has a food allergy have a an anaphylaxis action plan pending.
You need an FPIES reaction plan, right? The school needs to know what to do if your child is sick.
I am a huge advocate for schools having a nurse on campus the entire day, the entire day.
Sometimes I hear these stories about a school nurse who is covering five schools, five schools.
How is one nurse supposed to cover five schools? And then inevitably what ends up happening is, of course, our kiddos who have the most medical needs, they are the one who are getting the attention from the nurse and those children need that attention, right? But if the priority is having limited school nursing resource instead of let's have somebody on site the entire time, not just that, let's have a team for the nurse to rely on.
the medically inclined, right? The first responder inclined, sometimes like not to characterize, but sometimes the coaches, like they're used to dealing with injuries.
Somebody who's a Boy Scout troop leader, a Girl Scout troop leader, Those are the types of people that you want helping that nurse respond when there is a medical emergency.
I think being a school nurse is one of the hardest jobs, especially one of the hardest jobs in health care, because you are the only medical person on that campus, right? And for the most part, things are chill.
You are not the one at the end of the day making the decisions, right? It's the administration.
But then when the poo-poo hits the fan, all eyes are on you as the nurse and you got to perform.
So yes, to your point, we as allergists, pediatricians, we need to do everything we can to empower our school personnel who are caring for our patients during the day to be prepared to prevent an allergic reaction from happening, right? Like that's like...
Make sure people know how to recognize a reaction and respond to it and know what to do in that response.
Like, no, what I recommend to schools is that any kiddo who has a food allergy have a an anaphylaxis action plan pending.
You need an FPIES reaction plan, right? The school needs to know what to do if your child is sick.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
