Patsfan

The only people I touch without gloves are my family members!!! Universal precautions are mandatory where I work and grounds for dismissal if you don't wear gloves. The hospital doesn't want to take care of you when you contract aids, hep c etc.

I agree with all that you've said. As an OB RN I've been floated to every floor but the ER. I always went in the capacity of a tech. When we started to feel like the hospital float pool because we were floating so much we called the Mass. BON. Although the hospital was using us as techs on these floors, knowing many of us had no med/surg experience for a number of years, we were being paid as RN's and were practicing under our RN license. The BON told us that if a patient we were caring for went down the tubes that we would be responsible for that patient as an RN, not a tech. Since many of us felt uncomfortable with detecting subtle changes in these very sick patients (who would have been dead before they reached the hospital in the days of long ago when we had had our last med/surg experience), and felt the RN's who were actually assigned these patients were relying on our notifiying them of of these changes we sent a note to the VP of Nursing stating what BON had told us and our misgivings with what our assignments were, This, plus the Nurse Practice Act stating that the Hospital will be held at fault for inappropriate assignments has them reevaluating their floating position. Time will tell. And yes, one nurse was fired for refusing to float for the third time--it's three strikes and you're out at our hospital.