On some days, Jane Scharick is a self-styled Band-Aid Queen. On others, she's more of a Disposable Ice Pack Princess. Scharick, like other school nurses around the county, knows that Band-Aids and ice packs will cure most of what ails little students.

For nine years, this registered nurse has tended to just about every malady that the students at Cayuga Elementary School in Union Springs have come down with.

Prior to her tenure at Cayuga Elementary, where she tends to kindergartners through third-graders, Scharick worked at Mercy Health & Rehabilitation Center in Auburn caring for geriatric patients.

"I went from geriatric to pediatric," she joked.

She still occasionally works at Mercy Rehab when they need help, but her prime focus is on her little students and their little, and sometimes not so little, problems.

Nurse Jane, as the children call her, entertained the idea of working in the high school, but her mantra is "Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems." With older students, school nurses have to deal with the more serious issues of eating disorders, school-age pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease questions and substance abuse issues.

"I love the babies," she said about her little charges.

In Scharick's kid-friendly office, an average hour will chart any number of ailments, from a scrape on the elbow, to a bump on the knee, to a tummy ache. Most of the students know Nurse Jane and feel comfortable availing her of their woes.

"I see them for everything - papercuts, bumped heads, even bites. For them, it's traumatic," Scharick said.

Many of the students' problems stem from playground accidents, or even fights.

"Kids like to push and kick and bite. I see at least one bite a year that broke the skin," she said.

But mostly Scharick sees students with fevers, sore throats, ear aches and a hospital waiting room's worth of other problems from the minor to the major. A number of the students who wander into Scharick's office during the day are what she calls "frequent flyers." They are malingerers of sorts, the types of kids who would prefer to sit in the nurses office than do math or spelling.

Scharick says the teachers are good at spotting the "frequent flyers," but many can still fool the teachers with their tales of woe.

"We have some who come in every day, some a few times a week. I wonder where they learn to be hypochondriacs," Scharick said. "I guess some kids just need extra attention."

Though she will admit that a big part of her job is playing the role of substitute parent. While all teachers are essentially in loco parentis as a function of the profession, school nurses, because of the care that they give, are often closer to students than teachers.

While Cayuga Elementary has a school counselor, Scharick often finds herself in that role by default. When children are upset, their stress, much like adults manifests itself in a physical form. Many will unload their problems on Scharick from minor school troubles to more serious family and home issues. When it is warranted, Scharick passes on information to the counselor.

"Sometimes they just need to come in and get stuff off their chests. It's heartbreaking some of the stuff they tell you," she said. "This is the one secure place they know they can go."

Because children use Scharick like a counselor, it's important that they trust her. She builds that trust by treating the students respect while relating to them on their level. She doesn't baby them or talk down to them; she treats them almost as equals, with an approach that endears her to them.

When a towheaded kindergartener comes into the office crying about a bee-sting on his finger, Scharick says, "Not my boyfriend!" She calls him "Babe, " and whispers to him as she holds the ice pack on his tiny finger. His crying subsides - a combination of Scharick's soothing tones and the cure-all ice pack.

When one of her regular medication-takers comes in for her daily dose, Scharick affectionately calls her "Dolly." It's not the young girl's name, but a term of endearment because Scharick thinks she looks like a little doll.

In the years that Scharick has worked at Cayuga, she hasn't seen much increase in the number of children who are on psychotropic meds, as seems to be the national trend. She only has eight regular med-takers, but they run the gamut of medical issues.

What she has seen is a change in the drugs that are given to children. Often these drugs change a small child's appetite and sleep patterns and can make it hard for them to participate in school.

"It's hard to find the right meds that will work for kids," she said.

As lunch ends on a busy Thursday at Cayuga, two little girls show up at Scharick's door. One has her arm around the other - the children use the buddy system to go to the nurse - as she leads the injured youngster to Scharick. She tells the nurse that her friend, who, smiling, doesn't appear to be in that much pain, bumped her leg.

"What would work?," Scharick asks the two, knowing already that the answer could be only one of two remedies.

Both girls nod and reply, "An ice pack."

Scharick laughs. "A magic ice pack will do wonders."

Staff writer Lauren Ober can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or lauren.ober@lee.net