[Jenzee]

Originally Posted by KaroSnowQueen

I am the kind of person who NEEDS a lot of sleep, and going in to work tired and sleepy puts both me and my patients at risk. Have called in for not enough sleep, and will continue to do so.
I don't think the risk of a huge mistake when I am tired and foggy is worth the risk, I'd rather get an absence point and stay home and rest.

Me too. If I don't get enough sleep (at least 5 or 6 hrs) I end up picking up every virus that passes me. Plus, when I am done with school, I would just not comfortable having the lives of others in my hands with a foggy brain. I've gotta say though with 4 small ones (7, 4, 3, 20 months) and nursing school it is tough to get enough sleep.

Hopefully when the kids are a bit older and I am done with school I'll be able to get a little more rest.

[NHNurseMan]

Originally Posted by nursemike

Once also woke up in the middle of recording report--I was talking away, but no idea what I was saying.

This hapened to me about two weeks ago. I had worked three straight 12 hour overnight shifts getting 4 or 5 hours each day (I have a 4 and 5 year old that enjoy seeing dcaddy occasionally), then on the fourth day I got called in (I can't seem to say no). I felt fine for most of the shift but while I eas taping report I started dozing off. I caught myself the first two times, but one of the reports I had a female pt voiding adequate amouts of clr yellow urine into a urinal, oh yeah I also was taping report to room 204 on August 27 (I work on the fourth floor and all rooms start with a 4, an it was April 27). Thankfully the nurse taking the report was a friend of mine and one of the "nicer" day nurses and only asked if I could teach her how to get female patients to use a urinal.

To the original poster, I have called out due to lack of sleep, but always explained what my reason was, i.e. family illness, emergency dental work (needed a root canal). I've never had a problem with doing this as I am the first person to volunteer to help out whenever needed.

[colleennurse]

I once called in for not getting any sleep. I was scheduled to work a day/eveing double and I was having so much anxiety about going in that I tossed and turned until about 230am (at that point I would have gotten about 3 and 1/2 hours of sleep for 16 hours), so I called in and the night nursing supervisor gave me a bunch of grief about it, mind you I was only calling in for the day shift part and said that I would still work evenings and I had went ot bed at 930/10pm. So then after she guilted me I said I would try, well an hour later and many tears later I called back and said that there was no way. She got snotty with me. So I went in for evenings and when I saw my NM she said I did the right thing. Not safe to work 16 hours on less than 3 hours of sleep in my opinion. I no longer do scheduled doubles anymore.

[LPN,RNNow]

It really depends on how much sleep I got. I can function fairly well on 3 to 4 hours of sleep. If I was unable to sleep at all, I don't think I would be safe working. The first rule is "do no harm". If I am tired there are too many things I could do if not on top of things. There are too many times that I am the ultimate authority and have to make snap decisions. Lack of sleep would cloud my judgment possibly causing a detrimental error.

[arual56]

Originally Posted by catlynLPN

Yes, I called in recently due to not having had any sleep in over 24hours.
Had something upsetting happen during the night, causing me to not be able to sleep.
So I called in. She thought I should be able to just lay down and take a nap and then come on in.
Ahhh, the compassion and common sense or the lack thereof, of nursing directors never ceases to amaze me.

Guess what? They made it just fine without me.

And shock of shocks, the world did not come to an end without you, right? I know the feeling, I think our Nursing directors must be related.

[gentle]

Yes, I do call in if I don't "get any sleep." I also call in if I don't get enough sleep.

[JennieO]

Absolutely. We all know our judgment is impaired when we are exhausted. You could make a serious error that could harm a pt. or ruin your career. It is less about your being tired, as that you could make a serius and unreverseable error.

[Emmanuel Goldstein]

Except for a short trial of day shift (less than 6 months), I've worked nights the entire time I've been in nursing. I've worked on no sleep, and I've called in a few times because of it. Probably less than a handful of times in all these years, though.

I run a box type fan for white noise and darken the room as much as possible. Sometimes I still have trouble, but at least I'm not hearing the outside noises.

One thing I found that was a God-send, "Do Not Disturb" on my phone service (verizon carries it, not sure of other phone services). You program in when you wish your phone not to ring. What the caller hears is ringing then a message that you do not want to be disturbed, and it routes the call directly to a voice mail box without the phone ever ringing on your end. You can either set a certain number of hours for the service to be turned on or you can simply turn it on until you go back in to turn it off again. You can set it for certain days of the week, etc. It is AWESOME. You can program in numbers that will ring through, or (what I did) you enter a pin code that callers can push in when they call, then the call rings through. I gave the pin code to my father and my kids with the explanation that if they got the do not disturb message it meant I was sleeping, so if they REALLY needed me for an emergency, they could punch in the code and the call would ring through; otherwise they should just leave a message. All this for only $3 a month!!

[LPN,RNNow]

My husband is a "tech guy". He does computers and has some training in telephones. He has programed a switch on the phone line coming into the house. I can reach over flip the switch and the phone will never ring, and our voicemail through the phone company gets the message. When I wake up or he comes home it gets flipped back on and we call in for messages.

[one student nurse]

Interrestingly enough - I did that very thing just a couple of months ago - I am a student - and all of you know that you practically need to be in a coma before you are allowed to miss a clinical day - so I hesitated before calling in - but, deciding that if I were able to make the drive (as unsafe as that would be) I would be unsafe on the floor. My instructor agreed that I made a wise, and safe decision. I had to make up a day a few weeks later, but I believe that patient safety is a priority, and going without sleep has been proven to make your more unsafe at driving than even drinking and driving. I cannot believe that medicating and treatment are any less important. I hope that I never come across the same situation, but I do believe that lack of sleep does make a person unsafe - period.