Floating after 4 hours?

real51 · Jul 27, 2005

ALSO AS YOU SAID CONTRACTED TO THat unit to work as part of the team i have floated many times and dont mind as long as its not daily and my contracts are very specific

suzanne4, RN · Jul 27, 2005

YOUR RIGHT I WAS RECENTLY OFFERED A CONTRACT AS A FLOATER IM TRYING TO DECIDE THERE ARE SOME BENEFITS AS FAR AS LEARNING THE OTHER UNITS AND INCREASING YOUR KNOWLEDGE I USUALLY DO 3-6 OR 9 MONTH CONTRACTS AND I ENJOY BUILDING UP A RAPPORT WITH THE STAFF ITS REALLY HARD TO DO IF YOUR ARE FLOATED DAILY

I highly recommend it, especially if they will give you the training for the other areas that you may require. I always look at it as a way to increase my knowledge.

Look at each day as a new learning experience...........that is how I have gotten as far as I have. :)

mattsmom81 · Jul 27, 2005

Used to do that at several different facilities when I worked per diem agency. And I actually loved it. At oen facility, I would work ER for 4 hours, then could float to Endoscopy for another four, and then do my final four in the OR. Of course, I have training in all of these areas and the hospital knew it. By being so flexible, I had very littel chance of getting cancelled.

Wow. I bet facilities just love you. You feel good about going to 3 critical areas in 12 hours? I didn't feel I was giving good care. We were frequently tripled in these ICU's and patients were critical. And it troubles me that hospitals believe every nurse should be OK with this. I wasn't...so I voted with my feet.

suzanne4, RN · Jul 27, 2005

First, I would never, ever work in a facility that assigned three ICU patients to you. Next, if you know that you are going to be floated, you just plan what you need to do for those few hours that you are there. If you are used to it, then it isn't a problem, but only doing it once in awhile???

The number of hours that you are on a unit should have nothing to do with the care that you are giving that patient, at least it shouldn't in my opinion.

Endoscopy unit, you are just responsible for the patient that is in your procedure room at the time, same as for the OR.

nyck76 · Aug 28, 2005

Personally I don't like the idea of floating for 4 hours in a 12 because it makes you late to where ever you are going next. And when you get there that nurse is mad because they are late leaving, which isn't your fault either.Or the write out report and leave and I am sorry, ICU patients need verbal report, not written. I do think it is bad for continunity of care for patients, and I have seen more med and charting errors areas in patients that have 4 different nurses in one day. Areas like ER, Endo, or Pacu may not have this problem because those patients are constantly changing anyway. But medical and ICU patients don't need all that changing of staff every 4 hours.

As far as floating goes, there are areas I don't want experience in. LOL. Like ER. I hate ER. I hated it when I was a RT, therefore I choose not to experience it as a nurse. Just my preference. I don't float there either. If I don't have experience in an area, I don't float there. And it depends on the units in each hospital on whether I like floating or not. At one assignment in Illinois I loved floating to stepdown because I liked the people and they worked well together. In San Diego I hated floating to stepdown because they were jerks and the unit was unorganized. Same type of patients, totally different experience. And even if you are a staff nurse you may float alot depending on the hospital. At one hospital in San Jose ICU the newer staff nurses floated as much as we did because the travelers only floated to stepdown, meaning the staff floated everywhere else. Nurses that had been there 10 years+ didn't float at all, so the newer nurses had to go. So every place is different.