The doctor is in… your school? New program brings Richmond students access to expert medical care virtually

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond Public Schools (RPS) has partnered with the Children's Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to bring expert medical advice directly to your student — without them having to leave school.

Many have been there — a parent gets a call from the school nurse, they take off work, pick up their child and scramble to make a doctor's appointment... only to find out that it's just bad allergies.

Richmond Public Schools Nurse Melody Rosa is all too familiar with this chain of events.

"Nine times out of ten, [children] may need to stay in school and finish their day, and we can take care of it later," Rosa explained.

VCU Health experts, RPS leaders and City of Richmond officials joined together Monday afternoon to talk about this new program, but also to provide a quick demonstration of what one of these innovative telehealth appointments would look like.

"You know what, Nurse Rosa? I can jump on in five minutes," Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU General Pediatrics Division Chief Dr. Romesh Wijesooriya acted out a scenario where the school nurse texted him to confirm availability to check on a potentially sick student.

Within about 30 minutes of a health complaint, the child is virtually joining a free one-on-one with a medical expert.

"Covid was hard in many, many ways," Mayor Danny Avula -- who is also a certified pediatrician and helped guide Virginia through a leadership role during the COVID-19 pandemic -- began while discussing the "tele" part of telehealth. "But one of the really positive things that came out of that covid era, was the ability to shift to telehealth and to really try new methods and modalities of accessing care."

Officials said this program has been years in the making.

"This kind of partnership between our school system and our medical systems, two of the biggest systems that care for our children, but also just our entire community... when these sorts of partnerships occur, individual lives are changed, but the life of the community has changed," Dr. Wijesooriya said.

If the pediatrician determines a condition is not serious and a child is non-contagious, the child can head back to class. This whole process would have occurred without severely interrupting the parent or student's standard routine.

8News had the chance to test out the new program on Monday. Nurse Rosa joined virtually -- in the exact format she would through the program.

"Our focus is mainly on prevention as school nurses," Rosa explained. "One of our goals as school nurses is to try to keep the student in school so they don't miss time."

It is important to keep in mind that this is all about keeping Richmond students healthy and well. Therefore, if a doctor determines a child needs more serious medical attention or could be contagious, the child would go home or to a physical health institution -- it's a case-by-case situation.

Even though Monday marked the official, formal launch of the program, the partnering organizations have quietly rolled out this initiative since March.

RPS officials told 8News that there have been 10 visits so far across the three participating schools -- Cardinal, Carver, and Fairfield Court Elementary Schools. However, the school system hopes and plans to continue to expand.