[SharonH, RN]

I have been pulled to work on OB to take care of C-sections and I didn't like it one bit. When I protested that I didn't feel qualified to take care of these patients I was told that they are to be treated as any surgical patients. Basically that's true but on the other hand they had issues and questions about breast-feeding, the baby and other OB-related questions. I didn't feel like I was able to give the best care to my patients. The OB nurses were absolutely NOT helpful and they had major attitude. If they had been the least bit understanding of my position I probably would have been glad to go back and perhaps I could have expanded on my skills. Now I don't care what happens to them. Coincidentally I have never, ever worked with an OB nurse on the med-surg floor in 10+ years of nursing. You are probably better off without them being pulled to your area since this would probably be a source of resentment on their part. Perhaps there could be one or two designated people who are cross-trained to work both areas and who could be assigned accordingly, i.e. we're fully staffed on OB these days so they could work med-surg on that day and vice-versa. Just a thought.

[Jolie]

To Panda,

I don't mean to sound stupid, but how can your hospital have an OB service, but not do C-sections? Shat do you do with emergency cases?

[Cindy-OB RN/CCE]

I also work in OB and in my hospital we float to med-surg but they can't float to us. It seems to me that each unit should cover themselves, excluding emergencies, and that if everyone would stop keeping track of what other units were or weren't doing and just do their jobs everyone would be alot happier. I'm new to hospital nursing and I am willing to float to med-surg but to be honest I'm nervous about it. I think med-surg is a specialty area and I am not familiar with all of the meds, diseases, or procedures. Med-surg nurses are not familar with OB meds, conditions or procedures. I feel it is unsafe to have nurses cover areas they are not familar with just because they have RN behind their name.

[nurse-lou]

In the midst of the Severe Nursing shortage--my small hospital does not "float out" the OB nurses. Our OB unit is rather small and those nurses do it all--L&D, PP and Nursery. And as far as I know, they do not "float in" med/surg nurses of which I am one.

At the last hospital I worked at, I was floated to the post=partum unit. Talk about feeling like a fish out of water. I had one of the moms yell at me because I would not let her go over to NICU to see her baby---she was running a fever of like 102 degrees. She told me that if I didn't know what in the hell I was doing then I needed to go back to where I came from. See, she got mad that when I told her that she had to stay in her room and I had told her that I did not normally work on the mother/unit I would need to ask the charge nurse if she could go to the NICU with a fever----I didn't think that she would be allowed but wanted to double check with the regular staff.

Anyhow, I told the charge nurse about this situation and she went into the patients room and told the patient that she had better apologize to me for treating me that way. Next time I went into that patients room--she APOLOGIZED TO ME!!!! I thought I was gonna fall over. I graciously accepted her apology.

When we had an OB nurse on my med/surg unit at that last hospital, they did not take an assignment. They answered call lights, did chemstrips, took VS, etc. We were apprecitative of their help. Funny thing is---they expected us to take a full assignment when we were floated to OB yet the OB nurses refused to take an assignment whenever they were floated out the med/surg units. Go figure.

[Jolie]

To Panda,

How can your hospital offer OB services without doing C/Sections? What do you do with emergency cases?

[JennieBSN]

.

[Jolie]

Sorry about the double post. I am such a computer idiot. I didn't realize that this thread had more than one page!

[Irishys]

I am an OB nurse for a mid sized hospital (500) beds. We used to get pulled to any floor in the hospital. We were sent to ICU, Med-Surg, Ortho, etc. The nurses throughout the hospital raised a rukus because of this dangerous practice. We were told "a nurse is a nurse is a nurse". When mistakes were made - the hospital started using "complex based staffing". We are now part of the Maternal/Child Complex...which includes L&D, NICU, Peds and Postpartum (mother/baby). We were not given any orientation to these units. I work part-time and have been pulled to all of the above units. Pediatrics makes me the most nervous as we are taking care of children and the mistakes on this unit can be devestating. I get extremely nervous at the thought of getting hauled into court and not having a leg to stand on...because in truth...I am not trained and have no business on that unit. I believe each unit should staff itself. Nurses are not interchangable and the med/surg I did in school 20 years ago is no help to me now. The practice of "pulling" is dangerous...and I believe patients are entitiled to competant nursing care...how can this happen when nurses are taken from one unit and placed on another. :

[ninaldunn]

In our hospital the OB nurse manager is a Saint. She has schedules posted 8 weeks in advance, it's real nice to work there. I know tons of nurses who transferred to OB, maybe half of them stay. It's not for every one.

Anyway, usually post-partum is better staffed than the med-surg floors. OB takes lap choles all the time. At least 75% of the OB nurses have come from med-surg floors - it's like old times. The group who gets most upset is the doctors. Med-surg floats to PP, and hopefully one of their PP can go to L&D.

The funny thing is not all the regular OB nurses are trained in L&D. About 50% of the OB staff is cross trained to L&D. Is that normal? Some are newer nurses, but some have been on OB for 5 years, they are part-time, can only work PM's and have never been crossed trained.

[fergus51]

That's normal for our hospital because we actually have to take a year of part time courses and a practicum to get hired in L&D on top of our RN school. PP only requires one extra course so a lot of them take the one course and stay on that side.