Salute by Peers : Schools’ Nurse Is Best in U.S.

Long ago, in a faraway land called Vietnam, she had been among the first Army nurses in a U.S. buildup that became a long, bloody war.

Today, 22 years later, Meredith Meals practices a different kind of nursing--for the Los Alamitos Unified School District.

She is good at her job. So good, in fact, that this week she was named by the National Assn. of School Nurses as National School Nurse of the Year. Meals, who earlier this year had been named California School Nurse of the Year, was notified of the national award Thursday afternoon. On Friday, students at McGaugh Elementary in Seal Beach, one of two schools where she works, surrounded her and congratulated her.

“I prayed for you and had my fingers crossed,” one student told her.

Meals will receive her award at the national school nurses’ annual convention in Chicago in late June.

In an interview Friday, Meals reflected on her career odyssey from Saigon to Seal Beach.

“Between Vietnam and here, I’ve grown up,” she said. “I was just a young, happy-go-lucky college graduate when I went over there in 1965. But Vietnam really changed my life. And I don’t regret it.”

Meals said the maturity she gained as an Army nurse in Vietnam has helped her with the pressures and responsibilities of being a school nurse. Now a resident of Long Beach, the 44-year-old Meals is energetic and brimming with an obvious zest for her occupation.

‘Grand Community’

“I love this job,” she said. “This is a grand community to work in.” She alternates working between McGaugh in Seal Beach and Hopkinson Elementary in Los Alamitos.

During a typically busy morning on a recent school day at McGaugh Elementary, her schedule included instructing kindergarten students on how to avoid possible child molesters. Later, she treated children who came into her office for coughs and cuts and other problems.

An 11-year-old fifth-grader came into her office with sad eyes and a pale face. “I feel bad,” said Eli Shubin. “My throat hurts.”

Meals combined motherly love with professional skill as she cared for the boy. “Let’s see what we can do here,” she said, flashing him a warm smile and chatting with the boy as she took his temperature and checked his medical records.

Eli said later that he thinks Meals clearly deserves the statewide award. “She’s nice,” said Eli. “She’s kind.”

Gravitate to Her

Meals is the mother of two daughters, ages 17 and 13. She likes being with children, and they appear to gravitate to her. Kindergarten children beamed at her as she and school psychologist Cathy Pieper gave a talk and hand-puppet show about “safety with strangers and neighbors.”

Teaching children about child molesters is sensitive stuff, but the two are pros at getting the message across.

The 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls sat on the floor in a semicircle in front of Pieper and Meals during the safety lecture. Meals told them: “You already know some safety rules, such as looking both way before you cross the street. Today, we’re going to talk to you about three more safety rules. They are: saying no, getting away, and then telling someone.”

Meals and Pieper held up big signs with the three messages. “Most adults are here to keep you children safe,” Meals said. “But sometimes you may find a situation where an adult wants to hurt a child. Now, Mrs. Pieper and I are going to use the puppets of Susie and Johnny to show you how to say no, get away and then tell someone.”

Children watched closely as the puppet show unfolded. Hand puppets Susie and Johnny, dressed as little children, were playing in their front yard. Suddenly a stranger appeared--a hand puppet depicting a man. “I’ve lost my little dog,” said the Stranger Puppet. “Will you children come help me find it?”

“No,” said Johnny Puppet. “Our mother told us to stay here in the yard.”

“Oh,” said the Stranger Puppet, in a voice clearly sad and convincing. “I have a little boy who will be so sad because his dog is lost. Won’t you help me look for it?”

Resisting Temptation

Susie Puppet and Johnny Puppet firmly resisted the pleas of Stranger Puppet and ran into their house to tell Mother Puppet.

Meals and Pieper then ended the show with Mother Puppet praising her two children for resisting the temptation to go with the stranger.

“It would be sad if the man had really lost his dog, but you mustn’t go somewhere with a stranger,” Meals told the children. “Learn to say no, get away, and then go tell someone.”

In a second puppet show, Meals and Pieper showed how Susie Puppet wisely got away from Mr. Neighbor, who offered Susie lemonade and urged her to take off her dress because “it’s such a hot day.”

Over and over, Meals asked the children questions reinforcing the message of “say no, get away and tell someone.” The hourlong instruction period was like an informal storytelling session, and the children seemed to enjoy it. The safety messages were low-key, non-frightening and practical.

Part of Teaching

Meals said later that she and other school nurses like to be part of the teaching process, such as teaching safety tips to kindergarten and first-grade students.

“I think school nurses have a very important role, and it’s what I wanted to be when I returned to nursing,” said Meals, who dropped out of nursing for about 10 years after her first daughter was born. “When I came back to nursing, I went back to school to get a credential to become a school nurse.”

Her initial nursing career began in the shadow of war.

“I had joined the Army while I was at the University of Michigan so I could help pay some of my college costs,” she explained. “When I graduated in 1964, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Nurses Corps, and in 1965 I was sent to Vietnam. . . .

“We were assigned to a field hospital across the street from Tan Son Nhut Air Base. There really weren’t any front lines, if you remember Vietnam. The war was going on all around us. There were times that things would be blown up in Saigon. Tan Son Nhut Air Base was attacked, and we had casualties brought to us. No place was safe, and we all dealt with that in our own ways.

Indelible Imprint

“My way was to get involved with the Vietnamese, trying to get to know them. I ate with them, went to their weddings. I also organized a musical--’South Pacific’--and it toured all over Vietnam.”

The experience left an indelible imprint.

“One thing that I remember well is how all the young American soldiers were proud and loyal and thought it was right for us to be there in Vietnam. I believed that too, and still do believe that,” Meals said. “We had a mission. It was an important mission, and it made me very proud to be an American. I’ll never lose the patriotism I learned over there.”