Floated to another unit

UM Review RN, ASN, RN · Jul 1, 2006

You need to talk about this with your manager. Explain that your reason is that you have not been oriented to tele and are not qualified to float to tele.

It's a shame that they do that, because they wind up frightening potential candidates away, when some of you--if you did have the proper orientation and training--would really love tele.

Even our techs have to have training that's a little different from other units in the hospital.

So sorry that you have to go through this. It really doesn't happen at all hospitals, you know.

vamedic4, EMT-P · Jul 1, 2006

I agree with Angie. Also, you shouldn't float if you're still on orientation, unless your preceptor floats and you float "with" them. At my hospital, you're fair game once your 16 week orientation period ends. It can be quite disconcerting for new grads, some floors just love to give floaters the nasty assignments that no one else wants.

CarVsTree · Jul 1, 2006

I got floated 3 weeks off orientatation. Of course the computers were going down that night as well :uhoh3:

The floor I work on is extremely challenging. The floor I floated to seemed like a piece of cake compared to where I work so it was a nice night. Although I was the only nurse on that floor whose patients were at the far corners of the earth from each other. This particular unit is always short staffed and every nurse that floats there or picks up an extra shift there gets the spread out assignment treatment. While the nurses that work there have all there patients together. I wonder if they get why there so short staffed?

All floors at my hospital except one are tele so we're all trained and I regularly care for tele patients. Not a big deal once you're trained.

rnccm, RN · Jul 20, 2006

New grads get floated from our tele/sug step-down floor to the ICU and to emergency department. UGH!!! IT IS AWEFUL and scarey to say the least. Still trying to figure out basic floor nursing and getting floated to those speciality areas makes us want to quit or just leave every time,

chelsea_j · Jul 24, 2006

We have to float after 6 weeks off orientation. It can be hard but after a few times it isnt so bad.

Cardiac-RN · Jul 26, 2006

If it helps make you any less uncomfortable, when nurses get floated to my tele floor they are given patient assignments with dx that aren't cardiac (exac copd, uti/dehy/wkns, etc.) but are on telemetry for some kind of cardiac history (hx af, cad, angina etc.). Part of the charge nurse duties is to keep an eye on our monitors, but the nurses watch them as well. Generally these patient's hearts behave : )and it's not any different from your average med-surg pt. There is no giving non-tele trained floats AMI pts, post-caths or cardiac drips that are unfamiliar with. That is just cruel and unfair to pt and nurse.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jul 26, 2006

Having been a new grad, worked on a telemetry unit, floated all over hospitals where I worked and been a nursing supervisor who had to make float decisions, let me give you my perspective and experience about this. First of all, I've made no bones in many of my posts about hospitals that are willing to put new grads on stepdown and telemetry units. Most are merely looking for warm bodies to staff those units. These units have high turnover rates for very good reason-->they are high stress. New grads without proper support have no business being there. :twocents:

That said, floating, unfortunately, is a fact of most hospital nurses lives. It's not unique to nursing either. Floating occurs with flight attendants, bank tellers, and pharmacists working for large chain pharmacies that I know of and probably a lot more businesses. Very few people like to float. As an employee, both you, the staff nurse, and I, the nursing supervisor, have our jobs to do. Often the reason to send someone to telemetry was because we really needed someone in ICU, so someone from telemetry was floated to ICU and another staff nurse floated to telemetry. We made it very clear to the telemetry floor staff (and they should have known anyway) that float nurses are only able to give basic nursing care. Anything related to the EKG monitors or semi-ICU stuff has to be handled by them, so it's smart for them to arrange the assignments so the float nurse has a real easy assignment. I would follow up on that also because I was very much aware that the float was shaking in his/her boots during the entire shift. That, I felt, was part of my responsibility as a supervisor.

If that isn't happening where you work---I would really seriously start thinking about looking around at other places to work. If you don't work with other staff nurses who care about you why would you want to stay there? Care about each other extends to all levels of nursing, including supervision staff and the staff of floors you don't usually work on. That, to me, is just basic human appropriate interaction. That, above all, is what you want most in any job.

When you are floated and you ever find yourself in some kind of pickle where the staff nurses aren't helping you or you seem overwhelmed, you get on the horn and page the supervisor and tell him/her you need their help NOW. Don't waffle, be firm, be polite. "I need you to help me with this NOW." Be assertive and keep calling if they don't come through for you. If they're busy, they'll send you someone to help you. As a supervisor a good deal of my work was what I structured it to be. I had plenty of choice as to how and where to spend my working hours. I could be as hidden or as out in the open as I wanted. It's a great job. Remember, the squeaky wheel always gets the grease. If you outright refuse to float, you are tagged as insubordinate and risk being fired.

perfectbluebuildings, BSN, RN · Jul 27, 2006

I work in a children's hospital, and after you are oriented 1 12-hour shift on each unit in the hospital, you can be floated there. I work on a medical/infectious disease/catch-all floor, there is also hem/onc, NICU, PICU, and surgical floors and we can float to any one of them. The scariest so far for me was a shift floating to the NICU. Luckily at our hospital they seem to give float nurses not quite as difficult an assignment rather than the "dumping" that goes on in some hospitals. Plus on the hem/onc floor, it's usually non-onc. patients because you have to be certified to give chemo and only nurses working full-time on that floor, or in the float pool, get to be certified. Personally I don't enjoy floating that much, but I never like change I think you have to be off orientation 6 months in our hospital before you can float, they changed that just recently. I just wish they wouldn't think, that a peds nurse is a peds nurse no matter what unit you are in; that just ISN'T true!!