Not sure if this is just how this unit treats PRN staff or if it's because I'm the "new girl".
But I definitely felt dumped on last night - my first shift off orientation.
I work L&D and at the start of the shift there was only one patient on fetal monitoring (cervidil induction).
Guess who's patient it was?
Yep, mine.
Then an active labor patient comes in and they tell me to give away my patient and take the labor patient because I need practice.
I get that I'm still learning how things work there and I do need practice with lady partsl exams since my last facility had residents who did them. But I'm not a new nurse! I'm not even a new L&D nurse!
If this continues not sure I'll work there much longer.
Plus it's nights and I hate nights.
I'm interviewing for another job. Fingers crossed!
In our ICU the float pool nurses, who are ICU trained, tend to get the easier assignments. I'm not one of them, but I hear them complain occasionally. One nurse said to me, "I run balloon pumps all the time, and when I come here they stick me with the PCUs waiting for transfer!" My take on it: Better than being slammed. You can't please everybody. :-)
I've experienced "dumping syndrome" as both a PRN nurse and an agency nurse. It's quite frustrating. The justification I have often heard charge nurses use is that "they're making the big bucks, let them take care of the tough patients." This is ridiculous... For one thing, I made less money at my PRN job than I would have working overtime at my full-time job (I just liked having a backup plan when census was low at one facility, and a change of scenery is nice, too). Agency earned me only slightly more than that. Plus, I'm filling a hole in the staffing that would otherwise leave everyone on the unit overworked. Once you explain this to the people who perpetuate the "big money" myth, they often are more considerate when making assignments. I certainly try to be fair when making assignments, whether the nurse is staff, prn, float or agency.
I don't get it. Why on earth were you even there if the unit had more than one nurse without patients? In my experience PRN is first to be cancelled or floated if census is low. And even on a unit like L and D, where one nurse has to stay available if case an emergency pt walks in, the rest of the staff will be floated out to other units and given "task" assignments so they can return quickly if needed. I've never known a staffing coordinator let 3 or 4 nurses just "hang out," waiting for patients.
But given you were there, I'd say you were treated pretty well. You started with a patient on monitoring--sounds like a pretty standard run of the mill assignment for L and D. Then they had you pick up an admission, so you could get more experience. Again, pretty standard. You're new to their unit, even though you're not a new L and D nurse, so they probably thought they were giving you a chance to get more experience with their admission process. All in all, I'd say you had the kind of night that most L and D nurses on busy units can only dream about! I suppose you could technically say it was dumping because you were busier than they were, but I've always thought of dumping as one nurse overwhelmed and drowning--multiple pts in isolation, multiple total care patients, and admissions on top of that--while other nurses had easy, light assignments. Your assignment does not sound overwhelming or unfair to me, but then again I may not understand the whole picture.
delphine22
306 Posts
In our ICU the float pool nurses, who are ICU trained, tend to get the easier assignments. I'm not one of them, but I hear them complain occasionally. One nurse said to me, "I run balloon pumps all the time, and when I come here they stick me with the PCUs waiting for transfer!" My take on it: Better than being slammed. You can't please everybody. :-)