pulling ob nurses to other floors

i'm a mamma to 6 just like you !! lol... i started out in OB / GYN and L&D and i asked to be pulled to med/surg if the census dropped .. as do many OB nurses i know in my hospital... i now work med/surg and float to post partum and nursery... so do a few other Rn's that worked down there with me, we went up to med/surg and float to PP ... there is no problem with me floating down to post partum or nursery.. the precautions are the same for H1N1 in all units...

We get pulled to float all the time! Depending on the house supervisor, it depends on where we go. I have floated to mother-baby, which I am ok with. I was also pulled to the ICU where I was just supposed to be on suicide watch and a few hours later the charge nurse tried to get me to take a patient assignment. I told them that I would help them out in any other way in my scope of practice, but I would not take a patient assignment. The charge nurse's response? "You're a nurse aren't you?" and then she walked away. She ended up calling the bed manager and pulling a nurse who would be comfortable taking patients. Our census can change at the drop of hat, which makes us not the most reliable staff to pull. Not to mention the fact that nurses don't float to our floor. At my previous job we were a closed unit, no floating. We have also been pulled to med-surg and peds.

I am a med surg nurse and have been practicing for only nine months. I got pulled down to Post partum last night. Eventhough I wasn't supposed to be floated I was told that don't worry its not bad. The assignment was not bad and was a whole different world than med surg. I asked lots of questions and applied my basic nursing to any questions I had. Some of the nurses were getting irritated by my endless questions. Then when rounding in the am the day nurse treated me so poorly. I gave a pt. percocet Po instead of Torradol IV when she was NPO. On our floor we can give patients who are NPO their meds with sips of water. Well you would have thought I gave her a deadly drug. she had a fit. I finally told her to cut me some slack and that This is my first time on this floor. I told the charge nurse the incident and asked if I should call the doctor. She said no and just let it go. the patient was fine. I have never treated a floater with nothing but respect. I know its not there area of comfort when they come to my floor. I just was appalled on how this nurse was.Needless to say I did not feel welcomed.

Floating to ICU? Holy cow. How dangerous is that. Perhaps you should pull that same nurse to labor and delivery and tell her she is laboring a patient. When she resists, simply ask.....you are a nurse, aren't you? Incredible.

We used to float and then closed our unit. It just wasn't advantageous for anyone to be pulled to another floor (most of my staff are life long L&D) and it didn't help us out any to have anyone pulled to us. Nursing administrations simply must get it into their heads that the "nurse is a nurse" mentality is just not applicable anymore. Even med/surg has become more specialized in this day and age. It is ridiculous to believe that any nurse would be able to flip flop and know everything about everything.

We are a closed unit, too. We only float within Women's and Children's- L&D floats to postpartum to task or take patients, postpartum can float to us to baby-catch if needed, but not to take patients (one way street), they try not to have us even task in peds because they are usually so contagious / "dirty" but we have on occasion (usually they would put a postpartum nurse on peds and then put us on postpartum to avoid it - then we can float back to L&D if needed).

Totally agree w/ babyktchr... "Nursing administrations simply must get it into their heads that the "nurse is a nurse" mentality is just not applicable anymore" ... most of our staff are also career-long L&D people.

I always liken it to MD's... would you go to an OB/GYN for heart surgery? I don't think so! ... you really don't want an L&D nurse for another specialty, either.

I can't understand why no one is concerned with floating OB nurses to infectious floors. Of course, standard precautions etc. are implemented by all nurses but it seems to me the protection of the neonates has been lost somewhere. When I was a student nurse, we all had to have nasal cultures done. The heavy staph shedders were not allowed in the nursery. Now any Tom, Dick or Harry can wander anywhere. We tried to implement visitor restriction due to H1N1 and the first grandparent to complain and administration gave in like a too lenient parent who thus gets no respect. The biggest, most reputable facilities don't cave in. Their rules are rules period and they garner more respect from the general public. I think it is wrong for an OB nurse to float to units where there is C-diff, MRSA etc. and then possible get called back to the unit. Also used to be we had to shower when called back to the unit as well as change into hospital washed scrubs. Why have the standards fallen?

The joys of being pulled. I also work at a small hospital. It seems like when the rest of the hospital is slammed we are bored - so they pull us like crazy to any floor - ICU, ER, med surg. I can muddle my way through med surg without too much problem but ER and ICU stress me out. But I am a living and breathing RN and can do anything, right?

I totally agree!

In my Army MEDCEN it is the ICU nurses that are floated everywhere...But the kicker is....it seems that no one in the whole house can float to the unit when all heck is breaking loose!

Oh so not fair, in my opinion. I oftentimes feel the ICU staff are PROFIS to all the other units in the house that are short-staffed etc

The joys of being pulled. I also work at a small hospital. It seems like when the rest of the hospital is slammed we are bored - so they pull us like crazy to any floor - ICU, ER, med surg. I can muddle my way through med surg without too much problem but ER and ICU stress me out. But I am a living and breathing RN and can do anything, right?

Yeah that 's pretty much the mentality where I work as well. Yet, no one floats to L&D.

We are a 4 bed LDRP with total 44 bed hospital - as above, us LDRP nurses are the "rescue squad" for the rest of the hopsital since we sometimes have no patients. Problem is, last week the nurses had both been pulled to Med-Surg where sometimes we are even asked to take a patient - well, women comes in ED c/o stomach ache - LD nurses are called to meet ED on LD floor - barely got her off the stretcher into the bed before the baby came.....if the LD nurses would have had actual patient assignments, there would have been no time to report off - isn't that patient abandanment? Still, they ask us to "come up and help - but no more patient assignements. And as stated before - NO ONE comes to help us?????:banghead

I don't work L & D, but I think the same question can be applied. We have ECMO team members and floating helpers who are out and about in the hospital and they come into our NICU. In addition, our float team members could be in peds or PICU, full of H1N1 and RSV for the first part of their shift, and then work NICU. We have not seen any H1N1 come into our NICU, despite these "dirty" nurses. We also have seen no RSV caught in the hospital. We are sticklers for hand hygiene and cleaning environmental surfaces. Having an OB nurse on another floor is no different (infection control wise) than having a cardiologist round in ICU and then see a laboring mom with a history of heart disease. Or having portable x-ray come take a chest x ray after having been on med-surg. Now, expecting OB nurses to function clinically on other floors is a bit absurd, I think. It would be like asking me to labor a mom. That's preposterous.

We do not float to different areas. Most of us would be completely lost on a med/surg floor. We do have nurses that float to our area, though (they do postpartum only).

Usually, if our census is low and we need to cut a nurse or two, we have plenty of volunteers who are willing to get called off.