Like many young people graduating from high school, Karen Cooper left the halls of Headland High with no clear idea of what she wanted to do next.
“They gave us an opportunity if we wanted to go to school,” she said. “Even though I had been taken some academics, I still was indecisive on what I wanted to do.” People are also reading… “I’ve been in the nursing profession for 28 years,” she said from the office she shares with another nurse at Dothan’s Morris Slingluff Elementary School. She received her LPN and began working as a nurse. She returned to school later to become a registered nurse.Cooper has been named an honoree in the Dothan Eagle’s “Nurse: Heart of Health Care“ initiative. She is one of many nurses we’re highlighting as National Nurses Week approaches.
“School nursing is nothing like what people think it is,” she said. “They think it’s just a Band-Aid, but we have all kinds of health needs here at school. We have children with all kinds of issues – seizures, anaphylaxis… It’s a whole lot more than putting on a Band-Aid.”