DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 1997              TAG: 9708260369

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: BARCO                             LENGTH:   60 lines

ASSOCIATION SELECTS BARCO WOMAN AS SCHOOL NURSING'S BEST MEDICINE

Dorothy ``Dee'' Talley easily makes the transition from nursing students back to health to nursing legislation through the state legislature in Raleigh.

Her skills and reputation in both arenas have vaulted the school nurse for Currituck County High School to president-elect of the School Nurses' Association of North Carolina.

Talley, 52, will automatically assume the presidency of the organization next year.

``One of my goals is to promote the profession of school nursing,'' Talley said from her office Monday. The interview was a brief interruption of a morning busier than usual with sick students. ``Must be the change in weather.''

Talley had five students waiting for her for routine care before the phone conversation ended.

Ever the advocate for her profession, she recalled the words she used when she was chosen North Carolina School Nurse of the Year in 1996.

``Currituck is a rural county, so the largest number of people anywhere during the day (is) here in this high school,'' Talley said. ``There is no large industry. There are 825 students and another 100 faculty and staff. That's almost 1,000 people together every day.''

Talley took the job as the high school nurse in 1989 and was immediately struck by the volume and variety of the work.

On an average day, she'll see 25 to 30 students, and on one record-setting day last year she tended to 70 students during a flu outbreak. The duties have expanded from putting a Band-Aid on a knee, as Talley puts it, to the complications of catheterizations, treating asthma and giving intravenous fluids. School nurses are on the front lines of social ills such as teen pregnancy, drug abuse and domestic violence.

``The national association wants a nurse for every 750 students and North Carolina is nowhere near that,'' said Martha Guttu, regional school nurse consultant for the N.C. Department of Environmental Health and Natural Resources. North Carolina's average is one nurse per 3,148 students. Some areas of the state provide one nurse per 18,000 students.

``We would like to see school nurses mandated,'' Guttu said. Virginia law mandates school nurses, she said. School nurses are locally funded in North Carolina.

Talley has long been a proponent for legislation to make things better for school nurses. Recently, she lobbied for, and got, an increase in their salaries.

``I would love for every school in the state to have a school nurse,'' she said. ``Very few do. Currituck may have one of the best ratios in the state.''

Five of the seven Currituck County schools have nurses on campus.

The state group and its 250 members are part of the National Association of School Nurses, which formed in 1969. Talley was a charter member of the state chapter when it was formed in 1992.

Talley said she and her peers realized the need for a North Carolina chapter when 20 school nurses from across the state met to prepare for the certification exam.

``We realized how beneficial it was for us to communicate with each other,'' Talley said. Talley has been a nurse since 1966. She is married with three adult children.

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