Do you have fond memories of summer camp? Karen Seagraves, program director of the Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center at Grady Memorial Hospital, does. Only her memories are from last week.
Every year Seagraves saves up vacation time to spend at her second job: head nurse at Camp Coleman in Cleveland, Ga. Camp Coleman, a program of the Union for Reform Judaism, has served campers from all over the Southeast since 1964.
Camp nursing lets Seagraves work in a beautiful environment and spend time with her three children (ages 8, 12 and 16) and her father, who serves as camp driver and shopper.
“We all go to camp in the summer and I don’t want to miss a minute of it,” said Seagraves, BSN, MPH, MS, ANP-BC, ACNS-BC. “I think I laugh more here than any other time of the year.”
Seagraves always wanted to work in health policy and administration, but soon realized she couldn’t ask others to do what she had never done — work at the bedside. So she earned her nursing degree in 1999.
Her work at the Marcus Stroke Center is fulfilling because she uses all her skills, “but at camp, I get to be a nurse and take care of people.”
Each summer, Seagraves hires between 16 and 34 nurses from all backgrounds. Some work for a week, while others stay the entire summer. It takes a day shift of four nurses and one night nurse to care for the 400 campers and 200 staff members and to run the 17-bed health center.
Her summer job starts in January, when Seagraves hires nurses, orders supplies, checks emergency equipment and reads the health forms from every child. Once camp opens, “we provide urgent care. We’re first responders and also moms, dads and sometimes counselors to these kids,” she said.
Good assessment skills are critical.
“We have to decide when a tummy ache is homesickness, hunger, eating the wrong thing or a bad appendix,” she said.
Nurses give out daily medications at every meal to children with chronic conditions. They also deal with cuts, scrapes, broken bones, infections, viruses, rashes and insect bites. So far this summer, Seagraves has treated one child for copperhead snake bites and another for anaphylactic shock from an ant bite. Sometimes nurses drive campers 45 minutes to the nearest hospital for X-rays or more serious medical treatment.
On rare breaks, Seagraves likes to sit outside and watch kids swimming, boating or playing baseball.
“It’s like a piece of the past. They can bring board games, card games and books, but no electronics. Unplugged from TV and video games, they play, use their imaginations and learn about themselves,” she said.
Seagraves has worked as many as 34 consecutive days in the summer, commuting between her two jobs, but she loves it.
“Camp keeps me sane and nursing real. It’s addictive and I hope I never have to give it up,” she said.
The ultimate summer job
Ira Lufts, a home health nurse from Hollywood, Fla., started working at Camp Coleman for two weeks four years ago when his daughter was a camper. Now he stays for the whole summer.
“We work and work and work. Yesterday, I was in the clinic from 7:30 a.m. until midnight,” said Lufts, RN.
But he loves the scenic environment and working with young people.
“Most of the year, I work by myself, caring for an elderly population,” Lufts said. “It’s a nice change of pace to work with a group of nurses and to take care of kids. They heal a lot faster, and there is never a dull moment, because kids do the darndest things.”
On his second day as a camp nurse, Lufts treated a boy who had crashed his mountain bike.
“He was bleeding in several places and was pretty scuffed up. One of his shoes had gone flying off into a ravine and was never found, but he was laughing with his friends and was so proud of himself,” Lufts said. “I had to tell him, ‘No more Evel Knievel,’ but he cracked us all up.”
Marcia Weber, a nurse at an outpatient pediatric radiation clinic in West Palm, Fla., has worked at Camp Coleman for the past 14 years.
“For me, it’s an escape. I don’t have to cook, clean or go to the grocery store. It’s just total nursing and hiking, sightseeing or making crafts on my days off,” said Weber, BSN.
She relishes the camaraderie of the nursing staff and the knowledge she gains about medicine.
“We call ourselves the A Team, because we all pull our know-how together to make things work. A child doesn’t have to go home because of a broken bone; we can put on a Gore-Tex cast, so he can swim,” Weber said.
Communicating with concerned parents comes with the job.
“Parents just want to know that their child is safe and having fun, but sometimes there are bumps in the road,” she said. “As a mother, I always ask myself, ‘What would I want done if it were my child?’ ”
Not everyone is a born camper, so Weber sometimes “adopts” children who have trouble adjusting to camp.
“There’s a lot of learning and stress on kids at camp. They’re asked to try new things,” she said.
There is something for everyone, including sports, crafts, photography, journalism, music and theater. “There are so many opportunities to learn life skills and values here,” Weber said.
For Weber, those moments become treasured memories: watching campers accept and support a child on the autism spectrum or seeing a girl who was once afraid to climb a rock wall make it to the top with friends and staff cheering her on.
It can also mean teaching kids how to give themselves injections so they can spend the night at a friend’s house when they get home.
“I love everything about being at camp. It brings out the best in me,” she said.
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