Specialties Med-Surg
Published Jun 27, 2012
I'm a new grad RN about to start on a med-surg floor. I was told that on days I will have 4-5 patients and on nights 7-8. Does this sound normal/manageable?
Intentional
27 Posts
days 1:6 with an aide
nights 1:6 with an aide (1:4 if no aide) and a secretary who covers the whole hospital
Nurse ABC
437 Posts
We have 8 -10 patients and are supposed to work as a team with 1 RN, 1 LPN, and 1 PCT but most of the time we are missing either a LPN or PCT so it's usually two of us trying to manage our own job and part of someone else's.
tmartin83
105 Posts
1:6 max MedSurg/Tele Unit. We have aides only. Our CNA ratios are 1:9 max, I believe.
susu24
5 Posts
med/onc 32 private rooms, days 4-6 with 3 pcas & nights 8-10 with 2 pcas
westieluv
948 Posts
1:5-6 on twelve hour night shifts, but...we are constantly getting admissions and the admission process at our facility is riduculously lengthy. If I get one admission, just getting them settled in, going through the admission questions (19 pages!!!), and trying to get a hold of their doctor in the middle of the night to reconcile their home meds and get new orders will take well over an hour to two hours. But...I never get just one admission, it's always at least two, along with my other patients. Our med room is at the nurses' station, which is in the middle of a long hallway. We almost always get patients at extreme opposite ends of the hallway, and since the med room with all of their meds, IV bags, etc. and the supply room are at the nurses' station, it's run, run, run, all night long. By the end of my shift I feel broken down and worn out. Oh, did I mention that our aide almost always gets pulled to a different floor or is forced to sit with a one on one patient, meaning that the nurses are doing her work too?
I am done. I have about eight applications out, I am starting to get calls for interviews, and just as soon as I get hired elsewhere after making VERY SURE that I won't be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, I will be done with Med/Surg nursing forever.
WOO-HOO!!!!
Nursingluv101
85 Posts
I work as a float in CA
Medsurg non tele 1:5 rarely will have aides
Tele 1:4 rarely have aides
Postpartum can have up to 4 couplets ( mom and baby) no aide ever
ICU 2:1 no aides
ER 1:6 aides
Med surg/tele is the most difficult units but ICU can be stressful as well
ER is a nice fast to slow pace
arallenrn11
21 Posts
I'm on a Med/Surg telemetry unit in Kosciousko County, IN. We average 1:4-5 on days and 1:5-7 (usually 6 it seems) on nights.
HyperSaurus, RN, BSN
765 Posts
I work on a medical with tele floor. We use team nursig: R and LPN and 1-2 aide on the floor. At night the LPN and I share anywhere between 8-12 pts ( although we had 13 recently).
Grasshopper11
48 Posts
I work on a Med-Surg floor. Remember that you do not get just your set of patients and that is it for the rest of the shift. On our floor it is 5-6 pts per RN. However, there are days when I discharge 3-4 pts and then get another 3-4 pts from PACU. Making a total of 9 patients for that shift. That means doing admissions for all the new patients and "neglecting" the original 1-2 that are still there. Also you should not just go by the ratio or census for that day. After discharging 2 of my patients, the other 3 were so needy that I was hopping for the rest of the night. One I even had to call a Rapid Response. So always go by the acuity of the pt.
I work on a Med-Surg floor. Remember that you do not get just your set of patients and that is it for the rest of the shift. On our floor it is 5-6 pts per RN. However, there are days when I discharge 3-4 pts and then get another 3-4 pts from PACU. Making a total of 9 patients for that shift. That means doing admissions for all the new patients and "neglecting" the original 1-2 that are still there. Also you should not just go by the ratio or census for that day. After discharging 2 of my patients, the other 3 were so needy that I was hopping for the rest of the night. One I even had to call a Rapid Response. So always go by the acuity of the pt. Also you can not always rely on your aides. Some are wonderful and others are useless. There are always the bad apples in the bunch. I asked aides a number of times to bladder scan a pt at a certain time and when I find out that it wasn't done, there excuse is always "I forgot". So don't rely on having "help".
peasandonions
23 Posts
I work on a medical/surgical floor, and the hospital has no step down/progressive unit (that is us too). We have 38 beds, and 5-6 patients per RN on days and nights (because it is just as busy on nights on my floor!). But, on days they have 3-4 CNA's (due to baths/feeding), and at nights we have 2 if we are fully staffed. Depending on the charge nurse, they will take 2-3 patients, and the team lead takes 4. We are also a monitored unit (telemetry). We usually get at least 1 admission a night, but usually 2. We stay full
nightengalegoddess
292 Posts
Med-Surg-Tele here.....days, 5-6; nights, 6-7. Five is perfect. Six is usual. Seven is rare.....somehow...the nurse "who can manage well"...always gets that 7th patient (working nights)...why, why, why is it often ME??? I feel that our acuities are so high it can get unsafe beyond 6 at night. And days ought to never have more than five. That is why I am trying my dangdest to get a postition with a magnet hospital....they give 1:5 tops. And that is why they are safer to work in. It's a lot easier to find a new job than a new license.