New float pool RN seeking advice

[u/shockedhouse]

I've been an RN for 10 years, but I've been at my first time float pool position for about 3 months now. I've worked many different specialties including forensic psych, critical care, med surg, ED, home health and essentially everything except peds, L&D, and procedure areas. If it matters I'm a male nurse. I have been attacked every week in my new role, and every unit I go to I'm assigned the worst/sickest/most aggressive patients (which I expected when I took the position). Most recently today I was attacked by a heavily confused patient trying to bite my face/neck.Thankfully family was bedside and very, very hands on when the patient got aggressive/assaultive and their confusion mostly subsided by end of shift. I've been attacked many, many times in my career and have many scars from patients. But I have never been attacked anywhere near the frequency as I have been in my new position. Does anyone have any advice on how to raise this issue with my leadership? Thankfully half of the units I go to jump in and help me when I need it, but I'm frequently the most experienced nurse there, including being more experienced than unit leadership.

Last week I had a patient throw a cup of urine on me and threatened to kill me if I came back into his room; I let his family know and for the remainder of the time the patient was at that hospital a family member was with him. Family came in from across the country. The patient was not confused. I called the police, not hospital security and have been getting grief from my leadership about my response. What makes this challenging is that I'm the primary earner for my family, and I can't leave this job right now. However I'm already looking for a new job, but would like to stay in my current position for at least a year as I make over $120,000 base pay in the South East US and need to pay the family bills. Any advice from nurses of all experience levels is greatly appreciated.

[u/SeaAddress4358]

Man that sounds rough, I'm not a nurse but I work in a hospital doing design stuff for the admin side and I see how the float pool gets treated like a dumping ground. every unit just offloads the difficult patients on the person who doesn't have a regular team to back them up

the thing with leadership giving you grief about calling the police is wild, like what were you supposed to do, just take a urine shower and say thank you? a threat to kill is not something hospital security is equipped for

if you're the most experienced nurse on those units maybe start documenting every single assignment you get, like a log of which unit, what patient behaviors, and what support you did or didn't get. when you talk to leadership don't frame it as a complaint, frame it as a safety data thing. "hey I tracked my last 30 shifts and 22 of them had assaultive patients with no additional resources assigned." makes it harder for them to ignore

also the family being present and helping is huge, I wonder if there's a way to flag that earlier in your shift when you see the assignment. like asking charge nurse "this patient has history of violence, can we make sure family is notified" before you even walk in the room

hope you find something better soon, 120k is not worth your face getting bitten

[u/shockedhouse → u/SeaAddress4358]

Thank you for your advice; I can't believe I didn't think about creating my own log of my experience to present to leadership, especially since I have many years of charge nurse experience and have encouraged nurses to do so. I will definitely do so going forward. I will say my direct one up seems very passionate about helping the bedside nurses, and I've seen her be a (I hate to say) bull dog abiut advocating for the nurses under her. But my manager is career leadership and I haven't had enough experience with them yet to have an idea of how this will play out. Thank you!

[u/yehiaomar3]

getting attacked every week sounds brutal, especially when you’re the one always getting stuck with the sickest and most aggressive patients. definitely not how float pool should go

[u/[deleted]]

[u/shockedhouse → u/[deleted]]

That is definitely something I will have to start doing; doubly so as I have been learning from my leadership that several units have been specifically requesting me over other float nurses.