How often do you float off of your hospital floor? While most of us try to view these experiences as opportunities for growth, it can be stressful to suddenly find ourselves in new territory. What is it about floating that makes us feel like fish out of water? A recent floating experience left me with a few insights.

I try to arrive at each shift, mentally prepared to work. By the time I’ve reached the report room, I’ve already made mental notes of our floor’s census and flow. I greet coworkers and then settle in. It’s all quite comfortable and routine. No wonder it can be a harsh surprise to be unexpectedly ejected into a new environment.

As I recently re-gathered supplies and headed toward unfamiliar territory, I no longer felt fresh and confident. My comfort zone was under assault. En route to the new floor, I launched a rapid mental review of protocol for telemetry and post-op care. For the first of several times that day, I caught myself thinking, “I am a chemo nurse; I am not a tellie nurse.” It’s hard to step outside of the box. I admit I was a little scared.

Upon arrival to the new floor, I felt a disconcerting déjà vu. In many ways the floor looked identical to my own, but with subtle and overt differences. Like a bewildering dream, nothing was in its expected place. The supply closet had most of the usual supplies, but none of them were in the “right” place. Some supplies were missing altogether. None of my familiar passwords or codes worked, and I mindlessly typed in old codes long after noting that they did not work on this floor. I had trouble recalling the names of some of the nurses and, worse, didn’t know most of the doctors. Even the numbers on my patients’ doors seemed random and chaotic because they were unlike those on my floor.

Meanwhile, I mentally reviewed my clinical education from cross-training and in-services. I was forced to repeatedly refresh my memory by using little tricks that I had learned in nursing school. In order to perform tasks that came naturally to the floor’s home nurses, I was obliged to repeat little jingles in my head. I silently chanted “smoke over fire, snow over grass” with every lead that I placed.

At the end of a seemingly endless shift, I finally returned to my floor with a sigh of relief. I was grateful for the comfort of familiar supplies and faces, well-known procedures and reliable passwords. I am generally the kind of person who enjoys new challenges and I frequently embrace change. However, I am thankful for the constancy of a home floor. How do you feel about floating to other floors? Do travel nurses ever feel like fish out of water?