School Health Nurse ‘Hooked’ on Helping Kids With Asthma
from Children's Magazine, Fall 2005
School nurse consultant Shari Fessler helps one of
her asthmatic students.
Story by Melissa Howell
As a school health nurse in the 1990s, Shari Fessler, RN, was seeing more and more students with asthma.
She called the American Lung Association of Colorado to find materials to teach students about their asthma and learned about the American Lung Association’s “Open Airways for Schools” program. Since then, Fessler said she’s been “hooked” on helping kids with asthma.
That initial inquiry has opened additional avenues for Fessler to help children with asthma, from her continuing role as a school health nurse, and as a volunteer, an advocate, and even as a parent of a daughter with asthma.
Fessler is a school nurse consultant through The Children’s Hospital’s School Health Program.
“There is no typical day as a school health nurse,” Fessler said. “I am pretty busy – it keeps me moving.”
She is responsible for training and overseeing health clerks and a Children’s Hospital health assistant, and she gets paged when a student has a health problem or an injury. She also is involved with special-education students and any child with significant health needs – including asthma.
Fessler sees students with all kinds of asthma. The first step in working with a student with asthma is to make sure the student is seeing a health-care provider, Fessler said. Next, she works with that provider and the student’s parents to make sure the child has the necessary medications at school. If necessary, the third step is to work with the health-care provider to devise an asthma care plan for the child.
“Medications that are out there right now have helped a lot,” Fessler said. “I try to help parents understand that this is a serious disease that can be managed, and that their child can participate in almost all activities.”
Fessler also brings the “Open Airways for Schools” program to students. The program consists of six 40-minute sessions designed to help students understand how to better manage their asthma, how to detect warning signs, and how to identify actions they must take to prevent asthma episodes.
In addition to her work in schools, Fessler helps kids with asthma throughout Colorado. She is a member of the Colorado Asthma Coalition’s School Health and Childcare Committee, which works to ensure that children with asthma receive safe and effective asthma management services, tools and education.
During the 2005 Legislative session, Fessler was part of a committee that worked with state Sen. Paula Sandoval, D-Denver, to pass the Colorado Schoolchildren’s Asthma and Anaphylaxis Health Management Act, which allows students to carry and self-administer medication to treat asthma and severe allergies.
Fessler also has served as the as director of Asthma and Lung Disease Programs for the American Lung Association of Colorado. In that role, Fessler managed Champ Camp, a weeklong camp for children with asthma. She continues now as a volunteer nurse with Champ Camp.
Fessler said she likes “everything” about Champ Camp, but her favorite part is that it provides children who normally wouldn’t be able to go to camp because of their asthma with that opportunity.
“Campers learn they can do things that most kids can do – rock climbing, canoeing, archery, all kinds of sports,” Fessler said. “We’re there to support kids in understanding their asthma and managing their disease.”
Because of Fessler’s ongoing efforts to increase understanding about asthma on so many levels, children, parents and caregivers across Colorado can breathe a little easier.
