Oh the difference a unifrom can make

[snoopy29]

A few months ago I decided that in order to pay my son's way through university I would need to do some extra hours. I thought through the options and decided that it would be good for me to do the hours out of my usual area of work and to add interest to do them in a different hospital.

I duly applied for the nurse bank in the hospital I trained in and after the usual checks got cleared to work. In my day to day post I am a senior nurse and seen as experienced In my bank role I would be back to wearing a newly qualified uniform. Now don't think this is about ideas of my own grandeur as I am always first in line to get a bedpan and there is no job I am not prepared to do.

Some months in I have to say I cannot believe how badly bank nurses are preceived and treated by permanent staff. Let me fill you in on the rules......

1) Forget you have a name - now I have no problem in other nurses calling my nurse the bank nurse or similiar but clicking your fingers at me whilst hollering "oi thingy" is not going to make me feel valued and just for the record I can ignore "oi thingy" for a very long time.

2) Grow a camel's hump - I have lost count of the number of shifts when I have looked around and realised that I am the only qualified nurse on the ward only to find the permanent staff happily sat in the tea room. Now I don't begrudge anyone a break but please can you tell the bank nurse and secondly remember that occasionally just occasionally she might welcome a break too.

3) Develop psychic powers - I have been to countless wards where they have gone "have your handover and off you go". Luckily I know the hospital and wards well but a quick here is the emergency trolley and fire exits would not go amiss. When I have asked for a quick ward tour I have been tutted at! As ever god bless the health care assistants as they are the ones that respond to my" can anyone tell me where" pleas!!

4) Develop a thick, in fact rhinocerous type skin - the expectation appears to be that if you are banking its because you are a pretty useless nurse and cannot get a job anywhere else!!!!. On handing over nurses will say things like "oh you didn't do that dressing did you - it's very complex" in a tone of voice that clearly indicates it must be way beyond my capabilities and I must surely have messed it up!!! Heaven forbid you show any initiative - I moved a patients room around, he had been in hospital months and the new arrangment meant he could see out of the window which he appreciated. The nurse I handed over to sighed heavily and remarked that it would take her ages to unarrange as they always had there rooms the other way around!!!!!

5) Lose the need to be valued - on so many occasions I have finished a shift, said I was going and left without anyone even raising there head. I work as hard as I can, stay until the work is done and don't mind if I get given the heaviest, most dependent, confused and aggressive patients but a "thanks for your help" would go a very very long way.

So my plea is that nurses value nurses. I know there are good, bad and indifferent bank nurses but to be fair there are good bad and indifferent permanent nurses. In my position I get to go back to my permanent job and every so often one of my old senior colleagues will happen across me and ask what on earth I am doing - this is usually followed by the nurses that have ignored me, given me all the worst jobs, or clicked there fingers at me tentatively asking how their manager knows me and I have to admit to a tiny sense of satisfaction when I explain!! The exception to the above are the health care assistants who wherever I work seem to go out of their way to help and assist.

I truly take my hat off to all bank or floating nurses and have learnt many a hard lesson over the past few months.

[JulesRN10]

i am a pediatric nurse in a small rural hospital, which is code for "float pool". i know exactly what you are saying! from right out of the gates as a new nurse, i have floated to each and every floor in the hospital. my latest float was a re-assignment from peds, where we actually had patients, to the telemetry floor. now, i don't mind going to the telemetry floor, but the supervisor sent 2 rn's to pediatrics to cover my 1 lpn position and sent me to telemetry because they needed an aide! "well, those girls didn't want to do it, and you'll be an rn soon, so you won't have to either". what? just because i will graduate in 4 weeks doesn't mean that i will suddenly forget how to give patient care that is beneath me...really? and it seems very cost effective to replace 1 lpn with 2 rns on any floor, but especially a floor that has 2 patients admitted right now. but, what do i know, i'm "just an lpn". oh, how i love titles and expectations! wear your bank nurse uniform proudly, because the patients we touch every day may not say it, but they appreciate our attitude, our demeanor, our quickness to care, and our attention to detail more than we'll ever know!

[Dream Big]

Now that just bugs me and makes me wanna scream NOOOOO! Wake up nurses! We are all nurses. I am an RN, still relatively new at best. BUT, title doesn't matter is so many cases. I depend on LPNs to keep me in check and educated. Likewise I offer help where ever it is needed. At least with an associate degree the only difference between the RN and LPN is ONE tiny semester of school. LPNs rock my world because without them, I am nothing!

[noodles!]

Just to clarify, bank nurse= float nurse, not LPN :)

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

i've worked in icu since 1983. several years ago when i injured my knee and a monitor tech in the step-down unit had unexpectedly quit, i was offered the job of interum monitor tech. so i came to work and sat watching the monitors and answering phones. it's amazing how stupid i was to those step-down nurses, most of whom should have known me from the acls class i taught or from transferring my patients out of icu. a patient went into second degree heart block type ii, and when i told the patient's nurse, she blew me off. the cardiologist happened to be standing there, and orded the transcutaneous pacer set up. when the nurse protested the cardiologist said "ruby's the one who taught me . . . " i got more respect that day. sigh. but not the next.

[nursejoy1, ASN, RN]

In my opinion float nurses need more skills, as each floor/department they float to needs a different skill set. I admire those who are flexible enough to work any and all departments.

[fins]

And when the pool dries up, because nobody wants to put up with being treated that way, the "oi, thingy" nurses will be the ones whining loudest about not having enough staff.

[totally_nuts]

I'm an agency nurse and I get the same treatment, so I feel your pain!!

They seem to forget that we hold the same qualifications as the regular ward staff, and that without us being there they would be short-staffed.

It's so much fun .. not.