How far can hospital go?

[RNTX31]

Hi all! I work on a Postpartum floor that shares the unit with Pediatrics. We share nothing with each other, except being geographically close. Recently our Unit Director made the sudden decision to make Postpartum cross train to Pediatrics and they will have to cross train to Postpartum. The reasoning for this was supposedly “to be fair when it came to taking turns in being put on call/floating and backing each other up”. (I’m sure it has more to do with saving money by making us work both areas, therefore needing less staff). Several of us are unhappy about this, having zero desire in becoming a Pediatric or Postpartum nurse, as it applies. They are completely different fields from each other!
My question is, can they do this? How can it be mandatory to learn a field I was not hired to do and have no interest in learning?? Can I fight it?
Thanks for any advice/insight.

[klone, MSN, RN]

From an administrative standpoint - I'm guessing this is happening because the census in Peds is generally low, and it's hard to keep a full complement of trained pediatric nursing staff that aren't being low censused all the time. Having mom/baby nurses that are cross-trained to peds allows them to be able to utilize these nurses (I.e. give them enough hours so they can still pay their bills) when their peds census is low.

As far as...why mom/baby nurses? It makes a bit more sense than cross-training a med/surg or ICU nurse. Law of averages says that at least once in a while, you will have an infant in the pediatric unit, which you already know how to take care of. It's common for facilities to lump peds in with mom/baby.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

I suggest the OP look up the terms for constructive dismissal in her area.

[/username, BSN, RN]

On 6/6/2020 at 9:04 PM, TriciaJ said:

To the hospital administration it is the same. All those positions require "RN" after your name. If you stuck an "RN" tag on a mannequin, hospital admin would be fine with that too and Plastic Nurse would be one of your coworkers. These aren't people who necessarily "get it".

I worked with plastic nurse. She was the worst. Lazy POS. Always blathering about how great Trump is.

[TriciaJ, RN]

2 hours ago, /username said:

I worked with plastic nurse. She was the worst. Lazy POS. Always blathering about how great Trump is.

Ick. That's not much better than blathering about how terrible he is. We live in challenging times.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

Of course they can do it. What are you thinking?

Embrace this chance to learn new things. This can only help you, such as you could work Peds, even if you don't really like it, in case you can't find PP work in the future.

I know it's a drag right now but I hope you will find that it works out well. I hope they give you adequate training and experience before assigning you alone to Peds.

[Kooky Korky, BSN, RN]

On 6/9/2020 at 2:19 PM, RNTX31 said:

Yeah, this is Texas. And here, administrators would burn the hospital down before they would allow unionized nurses in. I’ve actually been told in orientation that if they see 3-4 of us congregating, or even inquiring about a union....we would all be terminated.

What a bunch of BS. Did that apply to congregating outside of work, too?

On 6/8/2020 at 10:41 AM, JadedCPN said:

Normally I would agree with you on this. But there is a big difference in adult world and pediatric world, med calculation and dosing, vitals, compensation, etc, so it becomes a safety issue.

Nothing wrong with Rehab

[Kitiger, RN]

On 6/11/2020 at 11:53 AM, jpicurn said:

I would also worry about cross contamination; as a new mom with a newborn, I wouldn't want a nurse that just took care of a pneumonia, RSV kid the day before....it just seems unsafe. Those would be my concerns, but as far as learning new skills and tasks, peds is great for that and it is fun and patients are usually doing well, so it makes it nice.

Exactly.