I may be accompanying a group of students on an outdoor education field trip in Wisconsin. I have two questions with regard to scope of practice:
1. Do I need to have a Wisconsin nursing license to cover these 50 hours or so while we are in Wisconsin?
2. In Illinois non-nursing staff are allowed to administer an EpiPen in the event a student with a known allergy were having an anaphylactic reaction. Is this the accepted practice in Wisconsin or must a trained health care provider administer the Epinephrine?
I have applied for the Wisconsin nursing license, just to be safe. I have not received the license and am not sure I will receive this license in time.
I very much appreciate your comments and advice in this matter.
-Patricia
This question was asked in the nursing forum section.
Linda says
Patricia, what state do you live in because if you live in a nursing compact state meaning you have a mulit-state license you won’t have to get another license because Wisconsin is part of the compact nursing agreement.
Great article on nursing compact states:
https://www.registerednursern.com/nursing-compact-states-list-of-nurse-license-compact-states/
Vickey says
Yeah I would look and see if your state is part of the nursing compact agreement like Linda said. Linda, I think she lives in Illinois based on her question….right Patricia? And it is not part of the nursing compact agreement so I suppose just to be safe I would get the license.
Regarding the Epi pen question I think of it as this. Say this person was at home having an attack and her friend was there and gave it to her…that would be okay because it was needed to save her life. I think of it as CPR…any lay person can do it. But you can always train the people who are going and get them to check off a competencies list. As a nurse you can teach others and it count as “real” teaching. But to be absolute sure I would contact the Illinois state board of nursing.
IL state board of nursing contact information:
https://www.registerednursern.com/illinois-board-of-nursing-board-of-nursing-illinois-il-information-registered-nurse-rn/
Another question Patricia will this person’s parent be with them who is at risk for the anaphylactic reaction because they can give the shot for sure?