Another question about "abandonment."

A friend of mine from the hospital also works PRN in a local nursing home. One night, he went to work at the nursing home and was told that he had been assigned to work on the alzheimer's unit. Since he had not received oritentation on the unit, he requested that the other nurse (who has expereince on the alzheimer's unit) change assiangments. The other nurse had come in early to cover 1/2 of the evening shift on the unit he was originally assignened to, so she refused.

My friend stated that he was not comfortable working on a unit with no oreintation, no back up (except another nurse on another floor), and only a CNA who had just come off orientation (this was going to be her first night "on her own"). He had not clocked in, so he stated he was not able to work that night and left.

The nursing home works with only one nurse in the building quite a bit, so while the nurse who stayed was inconvenienced, it was not something out of the ordinary and required nurse to patient ratios were still within legal limits.

The next morning, he called the nursing supervisor and told her that until he received at least one shift of orientation with another nurse or had a more expereinced CNA to work with that he was not going to work on the alzheimer's unit. She said that part of being a PRN nurse was being able to be "thrown in" to unfamiliar situations and still be able to maintain minimum standards. She also felt that because he works full time in a hospital and has different and unfamiliar patients every shift, he should be able to handle a new unit without difficulty. He stated that he was not going to work under situations that put his license and his patients at risk and resigned on the spot.

So...was it abandonment?