Cristi Egenolf

I’m a family physician. Diagnostic testing includes checking a temperature or blood pressure, measuring peak flow on someone with asthma to help determine whether they need to use their inhaler, or checking a blood sugar on someone with diabetes, among other things. These are essential services performed regularly by school nurses. I don’’t know if there are currently any public schools with on-site prescribers (physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants), but prohibiting prescribing rights and diagnostic testing is a certain way to ensure no prescriber would agree to work in that setting. They would be unable to run strep tests or urinalyses, to prescribe antibiotics for simple infections, or prescribe anti nausea medicines for people with gastroenteritis (sometimes called “stomach flu”). And no one performs surgeries at public schools so it’s a waste of everyone’s time to introduce legislation prohibiting it.