"Floating" to other departments??

SmilingBluEyes · Feb 3, 2003

Please see my reply to you in the General Nursing Forum. Short answer is YES you will be expected to float, if you are not a "closed unit" on OB. It's feast or famine in the way of census/work load to you will have to get used to the hospital wanting to use your skills in the other areas when OB is slow. NEVER MIND they seldom reciprocate it for us...anyhow. Pls see my answer on the other side as to what you can to do make sure it's fair when they come to floating staff members around.

Before I forget, You need to address the weekend scheduling problem with your new manager and the manager of the med-surg unit. It sounds lousy to me and I would do all I could to change it. Orienting to OB will keep you BUSY for a good while, so try to concentrate on that and ask NOT to be floated while on orientation, if at all possible. Good luck and welcome to OB.

jaxnRN · Feb 3, 2003

Thanks for giving me a good way to approach my supervisor. I also agree that it would be a distraction to me during my orientation but I didn't think it was a professional angle to take, which I didn't want her to think I couldn't "handle it", but coming from someone with OB experience, I guess that is a professional reason after all!!!

She actually has me scheduled 60 hours the first week PLUS I am in school getting my bachelors degree!!! A little much right now!

~Jackie

SmilingBluEyes · Feb 3, 2003

Go from the angle of orientation. OB orientation is intense and takes time...you need to try to do this UNinterrupted. And be careful w/going to school, also. I was doing a weekend BSN while orienting to OB and decided to stop school a while and concentrate on my Orientation. But it was my first job out of school and I felt I was biting off more than I could chew. I wish you luck. Make sure your manager understands your commitment to learning all you can about OB and becoming an ASSET to the floor that much sooner. It's hard to do if they float you all the time. just an angle....good luck.

mother/babyRN, RN · Feb 4, 2003

We float all the time, especially on nights. Last night for instance when I got there, we had a previously undiagnosed HELLP person at 36 weeks undergoing a stat sect under general. Her platelets were 39,000 and liver enzymes through the roof...One person in delivery....I was nursery and pp backup...PP rn was delivery backup. 5 patients out on the floor with 3 fresh surgicals, another with a K of 2.9 and a day 2 c/s....Some GYNs too...Pt in labor and delivery for recovery and at least overnight because she is critical. I get the kid and he starts retracting with resps of 100...I am in charge and the supervisor calls and tells me I have to float the pp LPN. I refuse...She tells me I have to.. THEN she tells me that other places have more critical patients than we do...I kept the LPN, and she ended up having to apologize. THEY never realize how sick people can get.....Platelets of that mom in the high 20s now.....I am leaving due to being part of the float pool with no prior knowlege..Unless you are a closed unit, you most likely will have to float. We do not take assignments there whatever they say, and have that edited into our contract....

SmilingBluEyes · Feb 4, 2003

OB is always at the bottom of the "food chain" when it comes to hospital priorities. But let just ONE thing go wrong...then we are so screwed................................................

cactus wren · Feb 5, 2003

Some how admin just doesn`t GET it...I`m an ICU nurse with mim OB experiance( and plan on keeping it that way...Miss Sacarlet, I don`t know nuttin about birthing them babies !!) I have heard out DOn say" An RN is an Rn " I`m totallt petrified when floated to OB, and my Ob friends feel the same way about coming to my dept......The DON actually has stated that no different skills or knowledge is needed to work anywhere in hospital...How scary is that?? One on the many reasond that O don`t work there anymore.....

Sabbatical..day # 35, and loving it....wish it could last forever.....sigh

mother/babyRN, RN · Feb 6, 2003

I always find it interesting that we are the bottom of the food chain when it comes to floating. Actually, we usually have the most well rounded experience, since we care for, scrub, recover and care for well and critical patients of various ages, some with underlying maladies that would curl the toes of others. I think administration and supervisors alike really think that we have little to do beyond birthing babies....Still, I do note that they are the ones standing the furthest away in the middle of a resus in delivery or the nursery.....And, as we all note, not one other nurse is EVER floated to delivery.....EVER...Yet, they want us to do everything everywhere else in the hospital, and treat us as aides when we get there and refuse an assignment. Like an ER or ICU person would have to take an assignment. Something could happen in their area on the odd occasion that one of them DID float, so they might have to go back and care for a patient or two who comes in unexpectedly. HELLO....What in the world does management think happens in delivery?????I will not EVER figure that one out....