School Nurse

The Medic of the school, the School Nurse is the local health professional responsible for caring for injuries sustained during gym class or schoolyard brawls and otherwise helping students with their health problems. Some school nurses also multitask as student counselors, giving students advice on their personal problems, and others might even hold a health care class or two.

In the world of Anime and Manga, the school nurse is almost Always Female, twentysomething, and extremely attractive. They tend to do their hair in buns, wear corrective lenses and white labcoats, combining aspects of Hot Librarian, Hot Scientist, and Hospital Hottie. For most intents and purposes, however, attractive school nurses count predominantly as Hot Teachers, being school staff over a librarian, scientist or physician.

In Western productions, especially animated works, however, often the reverse is true. In these works the school nurse is middle-aged, rather ugly, and generally grumpy about having to take care of so many snot-nosed brats (very similar to the lunch lady, who is rarely depicted at all in Eastern works). Comedy works often portray her as something akin to a Torture Technician, using all sorts of excuses to poke, prod, and jam needles into our plucky protagonists. Much of this portrayal is an homage to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. More nuanced portrayals outside of these two extremes also exist, though.

Interestingly, in North America, this role is slowly becoming out of date due to worries about liabilities in schools.

The school nurse is often the other part of a Two-Teacher School, and perhaps due to the aforementioned counselor associations she tends to be the one on closer terms with the school-aged main cast, serving as a Psychologist Teacher, Reasonable Authority Figure and/or a Cool Big Sis.

Examples of School Nurse include:

Anime & Manga

• Sakura from Urusei Yatsura, who is also a Shinto shrine maiden (this is especially funny for complicated reasons).
• An exceptional male nurse is in Here Is Greenwood, the protagonist's older brother.
• Medusa from Soul Eater.
• The school nurse in Hana Kimi is a guy too.
• The Lucky Star manga features Fuyuki.
• Happy Lesson: Yayoi Sanzenin, who like Sakura is also a Miko.
• Seto no Hanayome has San's mother taking up the position.
• It's revealed that Tsugumi Shibata became one in Hell Girl season 3.
• Yohko Sagisawa, a minor character in Mai-HiME.
  • Yohko Helene of Mai-Otome fills this role in addition to maintaining the school's technology.
• Saiko-sensei in 11eyes.
• Junsui Adolescence is a Girls Love manga about the romantic relationship between school nurse Matsumoto and her student Nanao.
• Aiko Kuriyama in Mitsudomoe
• Highschool of the Dead's Shizuka Marikawa takes this up to 11, with her being extremely ditzy and the most aesthetically blessed in a group of very well-endowed females.
• Michiru Onigawara from MM!!. She's not very personable for a nurse, though.
• Hades from Hokenshitsu no Shinigami - a Rare Male Example, and is an equally rare main character.
• Okamoto-sensei from Star Driver.
• As the battleship Amanohara is also a school in Lime-iro Senkitan and Lime Iro Ryukitan X, nurse Sumi Ichijouji fulfills this role. She's not one of the main heroines, but she stills wants to get Shintaro / Kyoshiro's pants.
• Urara Aoi from the Hana Yori Dango anime, who as a bonus is an ex-Eitoku student and a friend of Tsukasa's older sister Tsubaki.
• The protagonist of Maria no Danzai is the Hot Mom / Mama Bear Mari Nagare / Maria Akeboshi, who worked as a nurse before getting married. She invokes the trope by getting herself hired as this in her dead son's highschool, even pulling Sex for Services to make sure she'd get the spot... because she's determined to pull a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the VERY cruel bullies who bullied the poor boy to the point they forced him to commit suicide.

Eastern European Animation

• Similarly subverted in the Polish cartoon Wlatcy Moch, where the nurse is a serious Gonk. On the other hand, she is the least useless of the adults.

Films — Live Action

• Nurse Specks from Sky High.

Literature

• Madame Poppy Pomfrey from the Harry Potter series. She's plain yet kind, and is very competent.
• There's a children's picture book called "The School Nurse from the Black Lagoon". The narrator hears all sorts of things about the school nurse (incidentally named Ms. Hearse), then has to go to the nurse himself. It turns out that although the nurse is indeed named Ms. Hearse, she is pretty and very nice.
  

Live Action TV

• Cate Hennessy in 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter.
• Joan Redfern of the Doctor Who two-parter "Human Nature/Family of Blood".

Video Games

• Kyoko Minazuki from Rival Schools, who later doubles as Justice High's chemistry teacher.
• The Nurse in Katawa Shoujo is a precious Rare Male Example of this trope.
• The spinstery old nurse in Bully stalks around the school, muttering under her breath about how much she hates children.
• Male example: Mr. Ekoda from Persona 3, that creepy guy who also gives lectures on magic. Don't take his medicine (unless you need to build Courage).
• Pictured above: Kaori Shitou from Crescendo. Logically, she's a prospect love interest for Ryou if the player so desires.
• Manuela Casagranda from Fire Emblem: Three Houses more or less counts as this and as one of the Officer Academy's instructors. As a bonus, she's a White Mage.

Western Animation

• The Generic Cuteness of this trope is grossly subverted in South Park, where South Park Elementary's school nurse has a conjoined twin fetus attached to her face. She, however is very much in line with the typical portrayal of this trope in Western children's media, if even more grotesque than any children’s show would allow.
• Code Lyoko: Yolande Perraudin is a Western example of the Eastern-style of this trope, given how Animesque the show is as a whole.
• There's a nurse in Moral Orel, who also happens to be the school principal's mistress.
• The Simpsons: Lunchlady Doris (definitely not a Hospital Hottie) often doubles as nurse at Springfield Elementary, showing the conflation of this and lunch ladies in Western Animation. Somewhat lampshaded in that she's usually "promoted" to nurse by Springfield Elementary's recurring budget problems.
• At Camp Lazlo, Nurse Leslie, a male shark (nurse shark, get it?) who for some reason never gets off from his chair.
• Sheena's Aunt Shelly is P.S. 118's school nurse in Hey Arnold. She is plain in appearance but is competent with her student patients.
  • In "Rhonda's Glasses," a bit of an aversion to the Hospital Hottie stereotype occurs when Nurse Shelly tries to make Rhonda feel better about her diminished social status:

Rhonda: Nothing's going to make me feel better when I'm wearing these awful glasses. It's just not fair - I'm the coolest girl in class, I give the best slumber parties, and I have the most stylish and up-to-date clothes! Eugene: (to Nurse Shelly) Rhonda is all about style. Rhonda: And then overnight, I turn into a geek, and you and Sheena are feeling sorry for me - all because of the horrible glasses? I can't take it! Nurse Shelly: Oh, dear, it's a lot of pressure being the coolest girl in class. I know - when I was your age, I was the coolest girl in class... Rhonda: (looks up at the glasses-wearing, somewhat matronly Nurse Shelly and screams in horror)

• The Oblongs nurse is a mutant freak with a metal torture device for a hand. Fortunately it dispenses lollipops too!
• In My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Nurse Gazelle blends the Eastern and Western approaches to this trope, being as beautiful as she is brutal, to the point where she's the closest thing the show has to a villain.