Dad reports school nurse. Says, 'This woman is NOT a dentist!' AITA?
When this dad freaks out on his kid's school nurse, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling the school nurse she's not a dentist and reporting her?'
On Monday 7yo son came home missing his front tooth. It was a bit wiggly but not ready to be pulled. I asked what happened and he showed me his baby tooth in a baggy and said the nurse pulled it out. WTF?
I emailed his teacher and he said my son was wiggling it a lot and asked him if his tooth was about to fall out. My son said he didn't know and sent him to the nurse. He said he was expecting her to look and to call me if it was ready to come off.
Instead, she pulled it out and my son was not comfortable with it. He said it hurt. I spoke with her today and said she had ZERO business doing that. She said his tooth was pretty loose and she was worried he might swallow it. I said then why didn't you call me? You are NOT a dentist and you caused him pain.
She said she's been a school nurse for years. I said then you should had known better and you're a disgrace and unprofessional.
I did go to the vice principal who confirmed that is NOT within a school nurse's scope to pull teeth and she should had notified me instead. She was angry that the school nurse didn't even send a note that he saw her with is standard. Principal also said that i could 'tone it down.' AITA?
Let's see what readers had to say.
notyourstranger writes:
YTA. You don't need to be a dentist to help a kid with a loose baby tooth. She's the school nurse. Have some respect. If a dentist was needed, she would have called one. If a janitor had done it, I might have been a bit miffed but to yell at a school nurse like that makes you TA.
This is not a major medical procedure, you should have thanked the nurse for helping him out and making sure he got the tooth.
Otherwise he might have eaten it with his lunch, or accidentally swallowed it and that can actually cause harm. 'She caused him pain' - we've all survived the trauma of loosing our baby teeth - few of us had a nurse around when it happened, calm down.
charmingmirror writes:
NTA. She did something she was NOT cleared to do. Which I'm pretty sure is illegal. What if the tooth wasn't fully ready to come out and something had gone wrong. Your son told you he felt pain + he was scared. He's likely to never want to go to her again. So don't take it down, report her.
shycoyote writes:
I'm gonna go with NTA. I'm a dentist and I wouldn't pull out a kids' tooth in my office without getting explicit consent from the parent first. Having said that, it is a baby tooth that by all accounts was well on its way out anyway.
I cannot tell you how many times a parent or child has come in concerned because 'this tooth isn't even loose yet' when it is, in fact, quite loose. Point being that it may have been more far gone than you or your son realized.
I don't want to minimize any trauma this causes you or your son, but it is unlikely that he suffered severe pain in the pulling, and rest assured he will be ok. Could you have toned down your response a notch? Yes. Was it appropriate to bring this up with the school admin and escalate? Also yes.