"I am sorry - I refuse to float to Peds!"

Nurses Safety

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It was my time to float the other night and I was to float to pediatrics. No way Jose!

I have never felt comfortable with children and my specialty has always been with the adult population.

I stood my ground and refused pediatrics.....they said my assignments wouldn't be that bad - 3 infants and 2 older kids - NO! THE ANSWER IS NO!

I would rather be budgeted home that work with kids.

If I was a patient on an adult unit I would not want a neonatal or peds nurse caring for me after a major procedure......I think its safe to say that a child would feel uncomfortable in the hands of an adult nurse.

Sorry if that offends peds nurses, but i can't and i wont work peds.

Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

While it shows good sportsmanship to call the charge nurse to share concerns, many times, you still don't know what you are getting into until you are actually there and are no longer in a position to turn around, because it will be perceived as you 'accepted the assignment'. Hate to say it, but at my hospital many (not ALL, but MANY) of the senior nurses are witches who prey and dump on the agency or floaters. As mentioned, it is TOO much to look up and recall in the case of any emergency. And, a frazzled nurse=deadly nurse.

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Hogwash. There is a reason that nurses have to demonstrate unit specific competencies after undergoing an orientation period. It's called patient safety.

We don't grab the nearest general urologist when we're short on pediatricians. The same logic applies.

Hospitals/organizations that are willing to float anyone anywhere with a license and a pulse are egregiously irresponsible.

When your unit is short and you absolutely cannot get another RN who is qualified to work with that population, and no one is willing to stay over, perhaps then the charge nurse (unfortunately) will have to take some patients, and wouldn't it be nice if the unit manager and/or director stepped up to the plate (as one would think is appropriate for that level of responsibility)?

I wish I could use this argument the first time they try to float me to the cardiac unit from my "mostly stable/healthy" pt load on the surgical unit I work on. I'm a new RN who is very intimidated about being floated to units which I consider "specialty," and a specialty or pt population that I am not comfortable or trained to care for!

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Specializes in ER, PACU, Med-Surg, Hospice, LTC.

This is a HUGE reason I dislike the Nursing profession. People believing that because you have a Nursing license that you are now an expert in every area. I am in the minority, but I have always believed that every Nursing license should come with areas of specialties. Meaning, a Nurse is required to take continuing education in areas that they are interested in and those areas are the only areas where they can practice.

I agree with SaltyNurse....I mean, I have never heard of a Kindergarten teacher be transferred to a University to teach Calculus. Why not? Both are teachers, right? Or Physicians. Do they ask the Endocrinologist to see Psychiatric patients? Never.

To me, one reason that certain facilities float Nurses is because they did not plan for staffing appropriately. It is scary to think that they are willing to put patients at risk and put Nurses' licenses at risk (what do they care about your license?), so that their staffing looks perfect on paper.

What if something happened to a baby because a Nurses floated to Peds and didn't know what they were doing? How do you think that will sound in court?

Exactly.

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3 infants and 2 older kids

Two words come to mind to describe your management at this institution,..

Despicable desperation.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
I wish I could use this argument the first time they try to float me to the cardiac unit from my "mostly stable/healthy" pt load on the surgical unit I work on. I'm a new RN who is very intimidated about being floated to units which I consider "specialty," and a specialty or pt population that I am not comfortable or trained to care for!

If I were at work right now and had access to some search engines, I'd look for some studies published that link inappropriate floats to bad outcomes. And I'm certain you can contact a nursing practice insurance or medical malpractice agency that can provide recommendations on this issue as well since their lawyers have plenty of practice with this argument from both sides.

Will your hospital's administrators pay any attention? Who knows. Does standing up to "the man" potentially put your job at risk? Possibly. Is it worth it? 5 years ago I would have said, "Hellzyeah". However, I know that jobs are not so easy to find these days, particularly for newgrads. And unfortunately there are hospitals/organizations that are willing to sell out to the lowest bidder who will put up with ridiculous work environments. And that's why these problems continue. Things don't change until they see how risky situations affect their bottom line.

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

I fully support the OP's refusal of an unsafe assignment due to lack of familiarity with the patient population.

I hope there is similar support for OB, NICU, peds and psych nurses who likewise refuse to care for adult patients with whom they have no familiarity.

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Had you floated, wonder how the parents would have reacted if they found out you were not a peds nurse! Even with an interest in peds, I would have been scared to float without the proper training. Shoot, I still listen to my niece's HR & resps just to practice counting!

To be honest, I don't think parents care. A nurse is a nurse according to the public. The public usually thinks that anyone in scrubs is either a nurse or a doctor. They don't understand how complex the system is. So, no I don't think parents (unless they're a Health Care Provider by profession) would know that a non-peds nurse is nursing their child. I don't think they even know that nurses have to go through formal training for most of the specialty floors. Anyway, I agree with the OP but at the same time I also agree with the first commenters frank comment because it's absolutely true.

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.
Two words come to mind to describe your management at this institution,..

Despicable desperation.

I agree. No peds manager or charge nurse in their right mind would ask an adult nurse with no peds experience to take care of infants without so much as a little training first. I worked peds for two years, and when I decided to cross over to adults they didn't throw me to the wolves day one on my own, I had several weeks of training, because they knew standards, treatment options, etc were different.

Either the peds unit had some sudden call off's, or they need to hire some nurses (even just some PRN's).

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If I were at work right now and had access to some search engines, I'd look for some studies published that link inappropriate floats to bad outcomes. And I'm certain you can contact a nursing practice insurance or medical malpractice agency that can provide recommendations on this issue as well since their lawyers have plenty of practice with this argument from both sides.

Will your hospital's administrators pay any attention? Who knows. Does standing up to "the man" potentially put your job at risk? Possibly. Is it worth it? 5 years ago I would have said, "Hellzyeah". However, I know that jobs are not so easy to find these days, particularly for newgrads. And unfortunately there are hospitals/organizations that are willing to sell out to the lowest bidder who will put up with ridiculous work environments. And that's why these problems continue. Things don't change until they see how risky situations affect their bottom line.

To every nurse who reads this thread: If you had to choose between unemployment and losing your license, how many years of unemployment would need to be on the table for you to choose loss of licensure over loss of your job ? 2/3/5 ? Whats the magic number ? The bottom line is that nurses put themselves at risk for fear of losing their jobs without realizing that if they lose their license they will never have ANY nursing job again. That effectively makes you unemployed forever as far as nursing is concerned. Just trying to offer some perspective.:) And for those who believe that losing your nursing license is hard, do a search here and in cyberspace sometimes.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
To every nurse who reads this thread: If you had to choose between unemployment and losing your license, how many years of unemployment would need to be on the table for you to choose loss of licensure over loss of your job ? 2/3/5 ? Whats the magic number ? The bottom line is that nurses put themselves at risk for fear of losing their jobs without realizing that if they lose their license they will never have ANY nursing job again. That effectively makes you unemployed forever as far as nursing is concerned. Just trying to offer some perspective.:) And for those who believe that losing your nursing license is hard, do a search here and in cyberspace sometimes.

Absolutely. I hope I didn't come across as recommending that you put your license on the line in order to keep a job. Rather, in these times, you need to be more careful and diplomatic rather than being able to say something along the lines of "Take this job and shove it! I'm valuable and can have any number of jobs lined up in a second."

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I am with you on that one salty. Long gone are the days of filling out one application and getting calls from 3 other facilities you never even applied to. I miss those getting hired the same day years. :(

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Specializes in PICU now, Peds and med-surg in the past.

I am a charge nurse on the Pediatric unit which I work on. Occasionally I do see a med-surg float nurse come to our unit. When this happens it is expected that we will assign the adult float nurse the older patients (usually 14 and older) with diseases or injuries which they likely have experience in (like burns, appys, fractures, asthma etc). The extend of contact that our med-surg float nurses have with babies is when they ask to feed a stable baby for us because they want to. :0) I think based on the assignment you were to have it was right for you to refuse. If the opportunity comes in the future for you to float to Peds with an APPROPRIATE ASSIGNMENT such as what I described above, take it! You just may like it. :0)

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