Time to Float!

[abundantjoy07]

next month i'm eligible to float. generally we're understaffed and floating isn't an everyday occurance. the typical night shift nurse will get floated maybe 1-2 times a month.

it's been 7 months since i started this job, yet the fear of floating to other units still scares me. what is it like floating for the first time? where did you get floated to?

[bubbly]

Ooooh I had an awful time on my first and only float so far. It was only 8 weeks after I finished my NICU orientation and I was floated to the never seen before PICU unit. Everything was completely different over there and I had no idea what I was doing or where I was supposed to go. It would be a very very long story if I told you everything I had to do that I never even encountered before. I can just say it was a much more difficult assignment than I had done in the NICU esp on my own! It was only 2 patients, but 1 was on isolation for c-diff, which just made everything that more difficult. I ended up using the PICU charge nurse CONSTANTLY in the beginning, my NICU charge nurse to come help me chart all the meds with me over her lunch break, and a NICU transport nurse to take over completely my c-diff pt- which by the way kept her completely busy until shift ended as we were still trying to figure things out in the PICU and the charts. I cried for most of the shift as I was completely in over my head and felt so unsafe and incompetent and embarrased that I was crying. The rest of the PICU nurses were soooo inconsiderate as they just gossiped at the nursing station as they saw me frazzled and in tears without any offer to help. All I cared about was that none of my patients died or turned seriously worse during my care. I do not look forward to any future floats. I would be to the point of quitting than to float again. The day I floated was seriously the worst day in nursing I ever had so far.