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I had an adolescent brought to me by his mother to get clearance to return to his private school. The school’s counselor had been telling the mother that her son needed more counseling than what was available at school, and it had gotten to where the counselor said they would not take him back until he had a psychological evaluation and clearance. The boy had been very withdrawn and disruptive at home.I soon realized that there was something deeply wrong with the boy and he resisted all of my attempts to probe his psyche. He seemed to me like one huge booby trap primed to explode if probed in the wrong place. Knowing that the boy would resist any further psychotherapy and that the mother just wanted the clearance note to return to school, I told her that he needed a more extensive exam than what I could do in my office but there was a facility half an hour away that could do it now. I knew that facility had an inpatient adolescent unit and that once they started the evaluation, they would admit him.Wanting to get her son cleared for school, she took him directly from my office to the center. He was evaluated and immediately admitted where he stayed for the next two months. A few months after discharge he strangled and killed another boy and is now serving a long prison term. There is a lot more to the story, including what happened between discharge and the murder, but he had a darkness you could feel.

I was called by my youngest daughter's school when she was in 2nd grade. They told me that she had pink eye and I had to come pick her up. She was fine when she left that morning ! I got to the school to find her sitting in the office all packed up and ready to go. Her eyes were both fine ! I asked the office clerks to show me why they thought she had pink eye. They couldn't, but still said I'd have to get a note from her pediatrician stating that she was cleared to return to school.I felt as if I were in The Twilight Zone ! Both of her eyes were completely normal with no itching, drainage or soreness. Off to the pediatrician we went. He was as confused as I was. She didn't have pink eye. She didn't have anything wrong at all.I got a note from him and took her right back to school. The staff tried to make me wait 3 days while it “cleared up". There was nothing to clear up !I got a bit loud and aggravated. They finally allowed her to stay. I never did find out why they insisted that she had pink eye when she didn't. So weird.

My daughter’s teacher decided to substitute her opinion for that of a medical professional, and confiscate her crutches because she did not believe that her toe was actually broken.I have been teaching my 8-year-old Kaylee to ride, and she recently got stepped on when she was giving her pony a rubdown. Unfortunately it caused a fracture and we headed to the hospital where I work. It wasn’t a particularly gory or complicated fracture, and since it wasn’t her big toe all she needed for toe to heal was buddy taping. As I’m sure you can imagine, a typical cast would be hard to fit on a tiny little toe, so doctors typically stick some gauze between the injured toe and tape it to its neighbor, to immobilize it until it heals. Kaylee obviously needed to keep her weight off it as much as possible, so she was given crutches to use as well.Apparently Miss Menzel was unaware that one could treat a fracture without a cast, and she was so certain in her own ignorance that she refused to even check with the office to verify that I’d handed in a note explaining the injury and required care. An older child had once come to school in a found wheelchair as a joke, and Miss Menzel first assumed that Kaylee had done the same with the taping and the crutches. I suppose it didn’t occur to her to wonder how an 8 year-old snuck those crutches past her parents. She confiscated the crutches at the beginning of the day, and initially insisted that Kaylee remove the tape too. When she cried and told her teacher not to touch her, she was told that her parents would be called in to hear about her disobedience.My sister-in-law teaches at that school, and after four hours with no crutches she spotted Kaylee limping to the bathroom. She called me immediately but I was at work, so she confronted Miss Menzel. She still wouldn’t believe that Kaylee needed the crutches, and when another teacher – the child’s aunt – confirmed that she had a broken toe, Miss Menzel then decided that I was the one who was lying. She told my sister-in-law that she couldn’t accept a diagnosis given by a parent, especially when the parent was “only” a nurse. Stephanie got pissed off on my behalf and explained that I was nurse practitioner now, and that a doctor at the hospital had diagnosed and treated Kaylee.I believe they argued until the secretary returned from lunch and got out the instructions from that doctor, but Stephanie had already taken the crutches from behind Miss Menzel’s desk and given them back to Kaylee. By the time I saw the missed calls, my mother-in-law had picked a crying Kaylee up and they were on their way to my hospital, unsure if walking on the foot had caused more damage. Fortunately she was fine physically, but she was humiliated and terrified to return to school.Miss Menzel was suspended immediately, and we have let the school know that the only thing that will stop us from taking further action is if she never returns. The issue hasn’t been settled yet, because firing a teacher isn’t easy, but it looks like she won’t be returning to this school. I’m glad, because if she did, I would need to find a different one for my daughter – I’m not putting her back in that moron’s care.