floating between departments ie med/surg to nicu

Nurses General Nursing

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Hi I'm a nurse with a small dilemma and was hoping for some assistance. I graduated 3 years ago and like many new graduates are told to do so I went into med surg to develop my "nursing skills". Well after I begged and pleaded I was able to secure transfer to a NICU position and was safe there until my training time was over. Now every so often (we're talking about every 5 - 6 months) when the census goes down I'm expected to be able to go back to med surg and perform as well as the nurses that work that floor regularly I've spoken to my bosses using the chain of command and so far the response I've gotten is a nurse is a nurse is a nurse. I'm so frustrated. I love taking care of my patients, just the patient load, ancillary assistance available really don't compare to the the other floors that I work on and there really isn't enough time to be checking at least 5 out of every twenty medicines that you have to give per patient in the am. I feel that I can adequately take care of peds, gyn, mom/baby and level 2 nicu and think that med surg is too far a stretch or am I just overreacting and my bosses are right a nurse is a nurse is a nurse???

Please Help Any reply is appreciated

Thank You

the supervisors know, at least we did, what we are doing when we float people and where we are floating them. Floating, unfortunately, is a reality of nursing. And, our profession is not the only one that does this. They do it in banking, airlines, sales, restaurant service and many other businesses. Why do nurses get so rattled over this, particularly when they can have an entirely different group of patients to take care of from day to day? .

Ok I definately understand what your saying it sounds like they sent you to a floor that was adequately staffed and I dunno not so bad correct me if I'm wrong about this. I just think that putting nurses on a floor that is inadequately staffed, I'm guessing that is another one of my complaints my last day (but it doesn't ever differ much) ie... one tech to 20 + patients... bed alarms constantly going off... having your confused TOTAL CARE patient who was on the call bell the day before all day yesterday because they are confused and today because they are being cleansed for a colonoscopy tomorrow and cant be understood!!! Did I mention there's only one tech and no way I'm letting that person stay in sh**, sorry....and every one of your patients wants something and to top it off you are the ONLY nurse mind you that has not floated there in months but is getting an admit cuz your numbers were set up like that from the start and it's always 6:1. I don't know I'm just going to start speaking up ALL THE TIME... let's see how quickly I get labeled as whiney or as somebody who doesn't want to work.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

I think everyone needs to have a shot at being facility supervisor for a couple of weeks so they can see what the situation is on all the other units and not just their own. A supervisor making floating decisions is taking into consideration the staffing situation on other units. The persons being floated don't know that information and they often don't want to. I can tell you about units that treated floats terribly by giving them the sickest patients. What kind of gratitude and welcome is that for the extra help they got when shorthanded? They forget that we all work for the same hospital and need to work together.It's called teamwork.

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Specializes in neonatal intensive care.

The main reason I chose to retire last January was because of pulling. I worked in the NICU for over 20 years, but management expected us to work on the med-surg unit any time our census was low. It did not matter if we told them we were not experienced in adult nursing, our only other choice was to be fired!

I always went, but stayed close to the charge nurse and went to her with the smallest question I had about anything. Nowdays, management expects RN's to do any and everything as they are on the job 24/7 and be grateful that we have a job.

I am glad I am out of nursing.

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

I am sorry but I am responsible for my own competencies and my own license. It is my right and my obligation to know the limits of my knowledge and experience and the state board expects me to abide by this self-knowledge, no matter what the needs of the hospital "team". It is all right to feel uncomfortable; it is not all right to be sent somewhere where one has every reason to feel incompetent. The facility is legally responsible for providing appropriately trained staffing, not just warm bodies with an RN after their names. And as staff nurses we should not be made to feel guilty because we are trying to protect ourselves and our patients.

In addition, even the US Army knows that loyalty and team work are best cultivated and displayed in small groups where you have a chance to know each other and feel some cohesiveness. That's why they organize their men and women into squads and keep the squad members together. I believe a squad is around seven soldiers---about the size of a working floor shift group. Soldiers fight for their comrades, not the US Army as a whole. (A lot of them may not feel warmly towards the Army as a whole at any given time.)

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Specializes in MICU, SICU, PACU, Travel nursing.

oops misread a post

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I think everyone needs to have a shot at being facility supervisor for a couple of weeks so they can see what the situation is on all the other units and not just their own. A supervisor making floating decisions is taking into consideration the staffing situation on other units. The persons being floated don't know that information and they often don't want to. I can tell you about units that treated floats terribly by giving them the sickest patients. What kind of gratitude and welcome is that for the extra help they got when shorthanded? They forget that we all work for the same hospital and need to work together.It's called teamwork.

And I TOTALLY agree with you on this Daytonite especially on the emphasis on TEAMWORK. Unfortunately there's not always that cohesiveness on the floor every day like there should be. I'm totally for helping out and for doing whatever I have to do when people come to what I condsider to be my units I go out of my way to help them if it's in the NI and there is something that is overwhelming for someone that doesn't regularly go there I try and help them. I make sure they are "caught up" and help them if they need to get the ball rolling with anything. And my favorite feed an extra baby and "bond" if I can. If I'm on Peds, another floor I'm very comfortable with, and we get adult floats because we can be adult overflow YES ON PEDS isn't it lovely! I'll go out of my way to show them around where the different important rooms are meds/ dirty/ clean.... give them the door codes introduce them to the staff "mind you I'm still technically a 'float'" also make sure they are caught up sometimes getting myself in a jam and getting a bit behind but I catch up but it's still not med surg or at least not that horrible floor I went to the other day....

Coming to think of it I've always heard the nurses commenting on not giving floats horrible assignments but every time its the same thing. One time I was floated and I was given a confused man in four point restraints, I just about died that day!!!

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Hi everyone,

I've tried to talk with as many people as I can and no such luck I will be destined to float back to med/surg whenever they need. I'm not going to be there much longer. Thank you all for your replies, it really helped me not to feel alone in all this.

mcl10109

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