After 20 years of treating students, cultivating close friendships within the Emmaus High School community, and helping others around her feel better, school nurse Pamela Beaucamp is ready to say her farewells to East Penn.
An EHS alum, Beaucamp always wanted to work at her high school alma mater and stay connected to the community she grew up in. She appreciates how her career has come full circle; she was able to maintain friendships with her teachers and student patients as the years went on.
“When I got my school nurse certificate, I said there is only one school I will work for, and that will be Emmaus High School,” Beaucamp said. “I think we’re our own community, like family … when I started working [at EHS], my teachers were then my colleagues, and they embraced me and it was wonderful, and now I work with some of my former students.”
Her favorite memories as a school nurse circle around students posting “hilarious” Facebook check-ins from her office, and using her “famous frozen paper towel ice packs,” which, she includes, even made the yearbook once. She will miss her colleagues in the Nurse’s Office, who shared her sense of humor and made work lighter, as they compared their days to the sitcom, “The Office.”
Dedicated to her profession, Beaucamp split her time between emergency room nursing with the Lehigh Valley Health Network and school nursing for EPSD. She explains that her experiences with LVHN prepared her to face all kinds of medical emergencies as a school nurse, where she notes, “you never know what you’re going to be faced with.”
In the future, Beaucamp’s goals include working on a doctoral program in nursing, and continuing her hobby of yoga instruction in the community. She is interested in the field of legal nurse consulting, where medical professionals aid attorneys with their analysis and expertise.
Although Beaucamp will be unable to attend the graduation ceremony, she emphasizes her best wishes to the class of 2020 in her farewell.
“I will be out of the country when you [seniors] do have your graduation, and I just do want to wish the very best to all you graduating seniors,” Beaucamp said. “I’ve really enjoyed it, [there were] a lot of great memories and a lot of great times … I’m going to miss it, but I’m ready for a new challenge.”
