Split Medical-Surgical?

BluegrassRN · Nov 17, 2011

I work on a medical unit. Our surgical and medical units are completely split; they are on different floors, with different directors and staff.

I love it. And to me, it really makes sense. The surgical floor is kept "clean" as the dirty pneumonias, cellulitis, etc all come to our floor.

In the hospitals I know of who do this, the surgical floor is typically a surgical/oncology floor (because of the "clean" issue). The medical floor is somewhat of an extension of the ICU/Stepdown. We're like a continuation of them, of sorts. Basically, we get everyone who isn't surgical or getting any sort of oncology treatment, and who don't need to be in ICU or step down.

Like I said, I love it.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Nov 23, 2011

ours is combined but we are remodeling and hope to split soon for all the obvious reasons. I do believe the staff will be the same, only the assignments will differ

tokmom, BSN, RN · Nov 25, 2011

I have worked on both kinds. One hospital that split even some of the medical and the one I work now is both medical and surgical.

Jess_Missouri_RN · Nov 27, 2011

Our floor is combined but clean, we also have a dirty med-surg floor for isolation or pneumonia, etc. We have private rooms for surgical and shared rooms for medical, it all works out but can become confusing at times. We also have private rooms for our bariatrics surgeries and the nurses who are regular on our floor take a combo of patients, floaters do not take our bariatrics as they have specific post-op needs that only the regular staff nurse is accustom to.

luckynurse_1234 · Feb 22, 2012

Thanks for your responses everyone! Another question: do you think it would be better for you professionally if you only took care of medical patients or only surgical patients? One of the techs pointed out it seems like it would be better to do one or the other rather than having to be up to speed on every kind of surgery AND all sorts of medical conditions.

DEgalRN · Feb 22, 2012

We're "technically" split. However on my surgical floor, I regularly have 3 or more medical patients out of 6. However, our medical floor doesn't get any surgical patients (not even a 23 hour stay lap appy that came from their floor!). It's frustrating at the deliberate favoritism that goes on. But, honestly, I like have medical patients too. And a lot of the surgical patients have co-morbidities anyway. If I have to be in a place I don't want to be (I want to work peds, not adults), I may as well get as much info as I can while I'm here.

Hay Nars, RN · Feb 25, 2012

Nope, not split here!

nightengalegoddess · Mar 5, 2012

Should defintley be split. Who wants to be a healthy lap appy then find they are in a room double occupied with cellutitis. So many MS even have double occupancy.....still!!!! I have seen stupid combos of patients in same room........open appy...with cellulitis!!!! Charge nurse incompetency probably. I believe in single occupancy rooms.....unless we want to go bac, to ward nursing.........and curtains........so I can be there with all 5-7 pts ( or 20)....all my 12 hrs.......I would actually prefer this...but not safe. Yes........post surg should have single occupancy......never know when that second occupier's wound after three days culture turns out to be MRSA, and the other occupant has just had an open appy. or abdo..knee...etc..Hmmm.

FutureRN_NP · Mar 19, 2012

I will be working in Medical Unit on Med/Surg floor. I was told they split the two so I will not getting surgical pts as they have their own floor.

DookieMeisterRN · Mar 22, 2012

We have a variety of separate surgical units, ortho, neuro, colorectal/gen abd, colorectal/GI, gyne/uro, cardiac. The thoracic surgeries come to my unit-pulmonary, we have medical pts of course but all our rooms are singles, there's also a lot of in-house transfers that come to us in respiratory distress, and ICU transfers. I wish we had a step down unit... Sigh.

There's a renal medical, cardiac medical and plain old crazy old people (AKA AMS) medical unit also. Of course the surgical floors do get medical overflow pts but it has never really been an issue with clean vs dirty.

I've worked on units in other smaller facilities that have med/surg combined in one unit and it's good to have the variety but can also be physically exhausting with the medical pts. Surgical pts I find are less physically draining as they're typically more ambulatory than some 500 lb pt with cellulitis and whose one leg weighs as much as me.