This year, Southern Lehigh High School welcomes a new Certified School Nurse (CSN) to its health room: Mrs. Meghan Ilasi. Having worked in the medical sector for around nine years, she feels prepared for her new position and excited to learn the ropes at the high school.
“I worked at an elementary school in Parkland before, so I was ready for something new,” Mrs. Ilasi says. “Elementary school was a lot of recess injuries, so there’s none of that and high school kids are a lot more independent.”
She says she is experiencing a learning curve, since her few weeks here provided little time to adjust to Southern Lehigh after two years working as a health room assistant in Parkland. Before that position, she spent over a year as a clinical research coordinator for Lehigh Valley Health Network, and six years as a nurse consultant and case manager for Aetna Health Insurance. She feels that these positions have helped to prepare her for her current role.
“We have to contact doctors and parents and make sure everyone is involved, so I feel like there’s a lot of case management at the school nurse level,” Mrs. Ilasi says.
Beyond job experience, her resume boasts years of preparatory education. Mrs. Ilasi earned her B.S. in Nursing from Villanova University, completed a four-year clinical rotation through the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and later gained her CSN certification from Eastern University.
Her affinity for healthcare work is why she transferred directly into school nursing when nursing in the private sector began to impair her work-life balance.
“[COVID-19] happened, so then I decided the hours [as a clinical research coordinator] were crazy,” she says. “My mom was a school nurse and always said I should be one too, so I decided it was time to see my kids and have a work-life balance. I don’t mind getting up earlier, and it’s nice to have holidays and summers off.”
Mrs. Ilasi spends that newfound free time with her three daughters, ages five, eight, and nine. She also uses the breaks to invest into her own personal hobbies of exercising, cooking, and shopping.
After these first few months, her goals for the school year include touching up the health room.
“Right now, I’m just playing catch-up trying to do the opening year kinds of stuff, like bus cards and emergency procedures, so I don’t have immediate plans,” Mrs. Ilasi says. “But once that’s settled, I’d definitely like to decorate the health office with more up to date posters and bulletin boards.”
