What do you mean by DNU?
My first travel job, I had to float out my first day on my own. I floated at least once a week, sometimes twice. I might work 4 hours this unit and 4 hours that one. I might start with 9 patients. The ONLY one to start with that many. The nurse techs did not do blood pressures. They were supposed to. I never found out until 3 hours into the shift. I asked the charge nurse about it, and she said yes, they are to take blood pressures. She talked to the nurse tech. Said nurse tech never spoke to me for the rest of my contract. Something like 6 weeks.
My second travel job, I floated only when it was my turn. Average patient load was 6 patients. Same with the tech...her load was 6 patients.
My first two weeks there: I struggled to learn the computer system. And the 'routine' that floor used. It was all I could do to keep up.
I was chewed out, in a patinet room no less, for "not helping" the tech. Well, seeing as she din't ask for help...how would I know she needed it?
I was lectured on keeping the staff bathroom clean.
I was quizzed, constantly, by a staff nurse, on what I was doing, and how I was doing it. "Who are you bathing?" "Don't you want to use_____?" "Why are you using that?" "That stethascope is not any good, why are you not using this brand?"
I did get a Charge nurse who wanted to give me 7 patients to everyone else's 4. Were it not for the unit clerk who came and told me what was going on, I would have just taken the patient.
On that whole floor, there were maybe three nice people to work with.
My current assignment is on a different floor, at the same hospital. These people have been very nice. I have been incuded in the weekly breakfast out. I have been included in a couple of parties, and I am greeted with hugs by several of the staff when they have been gone.
As far as how I am treated, I do think that it just depends on the people that I work with. I told the girls on this floor how much nicer they are to me. They told me a little history about travel nurses they have known:
One nurse sat on her butt and sent text messages all night.
One nurse deliberately smeared the bathroom with, well, name it.
One nurse sat on her butt all night, never did a patient assessment all night, but charted one.
One nurse never came in on time, her whole contract.
One nurse called in sick twice a month, and let early at least once a week.
Explains why they treated me this way, to an extent anyway.
Still.
Would you like to comment?
As a 23 year agency nurse I have heard and seen it all. Some of the regular staff are gracious and some of them are just nerds.
Re: Why are others nurses rude to agency nurses
I was a travel nurse in a small town in N.W. Neb. my first time out. If you know small towns, then you will know that Everyone knows Everyone's business! After a few weeks of gratuitous insults about how much I was "costing the hospital", I finally cornered the biggest mouth in the place, and told her she too could make the kind of salary I was (it wasn't much more than the staff nurses) ; all she had to do was go out and get 20+ years of OR experience, and leave her family for extended periods of time! Shut her right up. To another a few years later, who must have thought we make mega-bucks, I told her the reason I was (then) driving that late '90s Ford wasn't because my Ferrari was in the shop all the time! Shut her up too!
