I work in OB nights ( going to per diem in 2 weeks!!) When we are on low census, one of the two nurses will "float" to Med/Surg or ER. So last night I floated to Med/Surg. I don't mind helping out but they were busy and I answered lights and did 99.8% CNA work, which I DON'T mind at times but the aids and the nurses were sitting in their report room, chatting while I walked patients to the bathrooms, and changed incontinent patients and got ice for their floor from another floor!!!!!!!! Finally I spoke up and am now considered a bi#@% from OB!!! I don't care.
When MEd/Surg sends home their nurses or aids for low census, they are gone and NOT on call. As an OB nurse, I am on call during low census so do get called in to work Med/surg which I do not feel is right!!!
Please don't take this wrong. I want to help out, I am NOT beneath changing beds or giving bedpans but honestly, I felt like refusing to work like a 3rd string slave so that those nurses and aids could take a break every hour!!!! If I wasn't going to per diem very soon, I would probably have thrown a real fit!
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
That's incredible........our med/surg nurses float EVERYWHERE. Some don't like it and will do everything they can to get out of it, but there are some like myself who love floating and are cross-trained to other departments. I do OB-GYN a lot, not L&D but I can recover postpartum moms and C/S, do newborn assessments and nursery, and even teach breastfeeding. I wouldn't want to do it full-time, nor would I want to do med/surg all the time like many of my co-workers. Variety is the spice of life! But I can't imagine a hospital NOT having M/S nurses float, let alone allowing OB to flounder.......where I work, we sometimes have 3 OB nurses sitting on their hineys reading the newspaper while M/S is drowning, which can cause a lot of resentment. But I can understand in a way, because I work both departments and serve as kind of an informal liaison between them, and OB is such a high-risk area that you simply have to have the staffing there, whether you "need" it or not. I've been up there on days when we had 4 laboring moms, new patients coming in for labor checks every couple of hours and staying, fresh post-ops and pediatric pts. who have to be monitored at least hourly, and you BET the med/surg nurses came to help!
Of course, what would solve all of this interdepartmental rivalry and infighting would be SAFE, adequate staffing, for ALL shifts, and a float pool of nurses who can work anywhere they're needed. It's OK to dream, isn't it?
Med surg nurses never floated to OB because OB was considered a specialty which required extra training and courses to work there. I agree that nurses need to be trained to work there, because they aren't going to be any help otherwise, but I never understood why I should be expected to work in med-surg if they weren't expected to work in my area. What's good for the goose....
That S*** is not right. I work perdiem and specifically tell them don't ask me to come in to float just leave me alone. You have a right to be mad especially with CNA's sitting on their carcasses. Help is one thing but abuse is another.
I loved reading this aspect of nursing. My first degree was in El. Ed teaching. I worked as an educational assistant for 8 years while I tried to get a real teaching job. The real teachers constantly acted the same way. Pulling me from room to room expecting me to be everywhere and in 20 places at once. Always hauling me to the administrator because they thought I should be working in their room and with their students not the class down the hall. Then a teacher wouldn't show up and I would have to sub. Or the recess monitor wouldn't be there and I had to do that. So you see it does go on in other jobs.
I worked an evening shift last night LTC facility I had 3 floors with 157 residents 3 RPN,s and 15 PSW's
Break you've got to be kidding in 8 hours I got to go to the bathroom.
I had 1 res. fall fracture hip, another bashed his head so HIR started, toilet res, help feed, assessements resp distress, CHF and then there res families to deal with.
I Love my job and I know there are going to be shifts when I don't even have time to remember my name.
VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN
22 Articles; 9,996 Posts
That's incredible........our med/surg nurses float EVERYWHERE. Some don't like it and will do everything they can to get out of it, but there are some like myself who love floating and are cross-trained to other departments. I do OB-GYN a lot, not L&D but I can recover postpartum moms and C/S, do newborn assessments and nursery, and even teach breastfeeding. I wouldn't want to do it full-time, nor would I want to do med/surg all the time like many of my co-workers. Variety is the spice of life! But I can't imagine a hospital NOT having M/S nurses float, let alone allowing OB to flounder.......where I work, we sometimes have 3 OB nurses sitting on their hineys reading the newspaper while M/S is drowning, which can cause a lot of resentment. But I can understand in a way, because I work both departments and serve as kind of an informal liaison between them, and OB is such a high-risk area that you simply have to have the staffing there, whether you "need" it or not. I've been up there on days when we had 4 laboring moms, new patients coming in for labor checks every couple of hours and staying, fresh post-ops and pediatric pts. who have to be monitored at least hourly, and you BET the med/surg nurses came to help!
Of course, what would solve all of this interdepartmental rivalry and infighting would be SAFE, adequate staffing, for ALL shifts, and a float pool of nurses who can work anywhere they're needed. It's OK to dream, isn't it?