Floating A Lot - Very Stressed

[Nurse Beth, MSN]

Dear Nurse Beth,

I am torn in accepting a job offer. I have 6 months experience at an IMC LTAC, and 4 months working as a med/surg floor nurse at a major acute hospital. My unit gets all of our patients from ER to rule out heart attack and stroke mainly. The patients are expected to stay less than two days. We do all the admissions and discharges.

Since I have been hired at this acute hospital, I have been floated to post-op, oncology, and cardiology non-stop. I spent my orientation, and most of the months on the floor like I was float pool because our unit kept on getting shut down, and our patients dispersed to other floors. Admin says the reason is because they would rather have the patients in nicer rooms, and not stay in the ER overflow where the rooms are just divided by curtains. Floating was a terrible experience that took away from building a good foundation for the position I was originally hired for. I got sick of floating, and being stressed to the point where I am taking therapy.

During the 3 months of floating I decided to apply to other places because I was so unhappy. So many nurses complained, so now my unit is on a 6 week trial to see if we can share a floor with cardiology in an attempt to keep us from floating. During this floating, I applied as an intake nurse for a small acute psychiatric hospital close to home, and got a job offer. The job seems wonderful! I would be in charge of screening patients for potential admits, and filling the beds.

I hesitate because I do not have any psych experience, and I wonder if I have enough med/surg experience to take on this position, or if I am hurting my career in the long run by cutting med/surg bedside experience too short. I hate doing bedside, so this job seems like a breath of fresh air. My current job is stable, at least, for the next 4 weeks, but there is always this feeling of dread every time I work that my unit will get shut down again, and I will be floated. I am also hesitant in leaving this hospital because I have already invested so much time. This is my first acute hospital job, the insurance is free, and they own three major hospitals in town that I might be burning a huge bridge. Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.

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Dear Am Torn,

You have really had a rocky road during your first year that unfortunately is all too familiar an experience for new nurses. On top of that, your unit is unstable.

You do not like your current acute care job, and it is causing you stress. You have an opportunity to move to an acute care psychiatric facility that is closer to home.

If you choose the behavioral health (psychiatric) job, you will lose your acute care skills and forego your foundational experience. If you decide later to go back to acute care, you will be starting over but will have lost your new grad” status while not yet having experienced nurse” status.

If you stay where you are for one year and then re-evaluate, you may have a different perspective. At the same time, you say that you hate bedside nursing. Hating bedside nursing and being unhappy with how a unit is run are two different things.

I would say that if you feel you can be sure you never want to work as a clinical bedside practice, then take the new job and don't look back. It's not worth being stressed enough to need therapy over your job.

Just be sure you understand the ramifications. Weigh them against jeopardizing your personal health.

Best wishes,

Nurse Beth

[monkey205]

You may like behavioral health ( I loved it) and not need to learn any new skills. Behavioral health has its own needed strengths. I worked in Geriatric-Pysch hospital on a medical unit so I had both. Do what your heart says. Nursing is a tough field and you have to find where your heart belongs to keep yourself sane.