Floated for the first time

Nurses New Nurse

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatrics, Wound Care.

I just floated to another unit for the first time (been working 8 or so months). Only 4 hours, after spending 8 hours on my unit. In some ways, just seemed like night and day. Much quiet. Was in the "new" building, so everything was generally prettier, cleaner, and more modern (especially the bathrooms). They do the change of shift a lot different, they use written SBARs and the oncoming nurses read them and search out the others for questions (my unit makes a reasonable attempt at bedside/doorside verbal reporting). The rating scale in the new unit was well, .. In my unit, I consider a "complete" patient someone who can't feed themselves effectively, is incontinent at least once/shift, needs to be turned, etc. There, they considered one of my patients a "complete" who could feed herself, had an ostomy and needed a little help getting to the bedside commode. I had a fun time. Really neat to see how other units work.

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I am a float nurse and though I am not happy with direct patient care I do enjoy floating. I learn something new everyday and I don't get mixed up in the politics. And for the most part the floor is happy that I came to help.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatrics, Wound Care.

Oh and my new floor was so much quieter. The phones weren't ringing off the hook. The call bells weren't a constant ding ding. I don't even know where their telemetry was, but I certainly wasn't hearing the constant ringing. (In the 4 hours I was there, 1 pt "called" me two times - to heat up her tea). Upon offering, one pt wanted a new gown. Another pt wanted something trivial.

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What kind of floor did you get floated too?

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Geriatrics, Wound Care.

An oncology floor. It is Sunday. Perhaps just a really slow day. But quite nice. =)

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Specializes in PDN; Burn; Phone triage.

Ugh, I'm up to float probably some time this week -- our unit census has been super low. I'm terrified that I'll end up in PICU. One of our nurses floated to PICU and her patient coded and died.

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Specializes in retired LTC.
I am a float nurse and though I am not happy with direct patient care I do enjoy floating. I learn something new everyday and I don't get mixed up in the politics. And for the most part the floor is happy that I came to help.
My words almost exactly on a recent response of mine here. Only I also had the luxury of going home on time, too.

I was a 'floater' by choice and I loved it.

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

If you do not like direct patient care then why are you doing it? I am also a float nurse and I love direct pt care as I feel I learn so much everyday.

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If you do not like direct patient care then why are you doing it? I am also a float nurse and I love direct pt care as I feel I learn so much everyday.

I am going back to school in January for informatics. It will take me 2 semesters full time to finish then I will go to law school. I work PRN now. When I decided to go to school it was either nursing or IT and I picked nursing. When I graduated I started on my IT degree but stopped because of my conflicting work schedule. That's when I transferred to the staffing department as a float nurse because I could set my own schedule. It was a breath of fresh air but then the depression started back because I knew I should be doing something different. So fast forward to now. I've already taken my LSAT but I wanted to do non patient care while in law school. So I decided to go for informatics first then start law school next fall.

If it wasn't for floating I would have left a long time ago. I go in now with the attitude of hey I will learn something new and I can concentrate on my work and the patients. The good thing about being a floater I usually have more experience and a lot of the newer nurses use me as a resource which I'm actually happy to help.

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I floated for the 1st time last week and my experience was almost identical to yours. I was so nervous to leave my unit, but it really was a pleasant experience and I got to experience things not normally seen on my unit.

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