[MedSurgeNewbie]

Question,
Ok I had a stupid moment and thought I was fliping to the night shift , off a day shift .. I stayed up all right to get my day sleep and boom 7a I get the where are you call.. Ok I messed up I fully acknoledge it was completely bone head of me - but am I wrong not to shower and go in? at that point I am up 24 hrs straight and really out of it - I felt I was totally unsafe we're a busy unit and I feel totaly rotten working short is horrid but I think I would of been dangerous - what would you do?

[StrwbryblndRN]

If you are asking if you are wrong to call in, then I say no. Mistakes happen and you are owning up to it and preventing any additional mistakes. You did not stay out all night for fun. You had good intentions of getting sleep to be fresh for your shift. Unfortunately it was for the wrong shift.
If I was working days with you I would not be happy about the situation but I would probably laugh about it. No one goes without making mistakes.
Even if others were upset, do not worry about it. That will happen too.
POO POO Happens!

[RNperdiem]

You admitted to your mistake, and that is good. What you could do is apologize profusely to your charge nurse calling you and offer to go in after a few hours sleep. You might be able to cover half your shift that way.

[Zookeeper3]

Well your name says newbie, so some very serious slack is needed here. How much slack is determined by the culture of you unit. We DON'T rotate, straight days and nights. This doesn't mean that a day shift nurse won't call at 1am, unable to sleep and beg for someone to stay an extra 4 hrs. and then she'll come in early the next shift.

Flip flopping is beyond difficult, our bodies fight us tooth and nail. We end up on meds, sleepers, anti-anxiety stuff, we a walking pharmacology experiment some days... all to function to work.

I can only hope that you have as I do, a very supportive staff that; 1. doesn't take advantage of each other, 2. asks for help with an extended shift on a rare occasion, 3. has the professionalism to link up with both night and day shift peer and pre-plan when you're in a rut, not sleeping for the other nurse to stay longer to cover for you.

The problem is not the lack of sleep, well it is, the problem is that you've not sought out your peers to help, and then offered to recirprocate when needed by them. Give that a try. You don't need management involvement if your total hours stay the same, at least we've never asked for it, we simply cover for each other.

You will have those hard shifts that are unsafe. "I don't want to call in, can anyone stay 4 extra hours to cover me and I'll come in 4 early tomorrow?" . Try it. Shift work is exhausting and we need to take care of each other, you may just have to start the trend., but reciprocate!

[santhony44]

If you've been up 24 hours, you don't need to be working. Trying to work on no sleep is just asking for errors.

Zookeepers' suggestions are good ones. If someone stayed over or came in extra to take your place, then offer to cover a shift for that person.

I always thought it was interesting to work nights on time change weekends. Almost every time we had someone come in early or late because of forgetting to reset a clock! Things happen, people make mistakes. Life goes on.

[november551]

Haha I did the same exact thing!! For some reason I was under the impression I was switching to night shift on a particular day. I stayed up half the night to sleep in later. Worse though, my ringer was off and I didn't wake up until 4pm. I checked my called ID, saw my work had called 4 times throughout the day, and realized my mistake. I felt like a doofus. Thankfully, I was still orienting so it wasn't a big deal.

[azor]

I know i cant saw it more than the previous but i have to tell you to stop blaming yourself for not waking up to work because thats nature.You just have to plan on what to do next time you have to encounter that kind of sleep deprivation.A sleep deprived nurse is a peccable nurse.Failing to plan ahead is planning to fail.

[everthesame]

Been there, done that. Apologize for not being able to come in for the day shift and explain what happened. Do they need help tonight, the shift you sincerely believed you were supposed to work? If so, offer to work tonight.
As others have said, working after being up for over 24 hours is not safe. Do not feel guilty about putting patient safety first.
I'm sure you'll be double checking your schedule in the future to make sure this doesn't happen again. I know after I had my "where are you" episode, I was triple checking my schedule against my day planner to make sure I didn't mix my schedule up again.

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

Aww. This is totally one of my biggest fears - that I will screw-up my schedule and not go in on a day I'm supposed to be there. (We do straight-up days or nights, and usually get several weeks notice if we are changing.) Every single time I have a day off I can't relax until like 8:30pm - that's when I am finally convinced "OK I really don't have to be there, nobody called". I hate that feeling. I don't know why, I'm just so paranoid I messed-up my schedule, even when I check it 100 times.

[bagladyrn]

I think we all have this sort of experience at some point in our career. In one experience I had, the schedule was changed while I was off (luckily I had a xerox of it at home), the house supervisor tried to call repeatedly, got a busy signal as I was on the phone, had the operator break in, as it happened jjust as I hung up. She told him "No one on the line", he decided someone must have knocked me in the head and left the phone off the hook (he told me later) so he called the police. Next thing I know there are men in blue coming in my front door, followed by my neighbors (all of whom had scanners and heard the call)!
Took me a long time to live down that!