FranRN

I have worked the last 9 months on a general surgical floor. Here at this hospital we are only required to float within our specialty. I have floated to the other surgical floor and to out post surgical care unit. I recieved no orientation. I did find the staff to be appreciative and very pleasant towards me, almost more pleasant than some of my co-workers on my PERM unit. We have a float book. We take turns floating. The only thing is, that you had to make sure yourself that it was written in the book before you left. Somtimes it did get missed and you had to float again. If it was written down, then you diddn't go. I do think that if you had experience on the medical floor then you could opt to float there instead of being cancelled when the surical floor's census was low. Hope this helps. Always say something though if you do not feel comfortable floating to the area where you do. I was not telemetry certified when I floated to PSU, so I just told them and the other nurses monitored my clients telemetry. I do know the basics and can point out something life threatening to my clients. Best of Wishes

In my experience, we took VS on every new admission for the first week, then once a month after that if everything was ok. We were also required to get VS on every medicare patient each shift. This worked pretty well. We also did not have to chart on everyone each shift; just the ones who were sick and also each medicare patient. Every patient did get charted on atleast x2 a month.