Night Shift And Cancer

susi_q · Jun 17, 2003

I've worked nights for about 5 years now - love the shift, and the people (and lack of admin, med staff, etc). It works for our family, too. But I have finally put a finger on why I get such a short fuse at times ... I'm acting like a stay-at-home mom during the day, then going to work at night - and doing it all over again later in the week (I'm a 2/wk employ). I wonder how many of us try to stretch ourselves in that way - which wears on the immune system, keeps us from our support systems - and wears out our bodies earlier?

Hmmm!

mommajoe · Jun 18, 2003

Hey, I work at night and I also love it. I have been FTE and now PTE for the last 6 years. I have a wonderful husband who is able to care for our 3 children at night. I have a 11 year old son, a 7 year old daughter and a 15 month daughter. I will admit it is not always the perfect schedule but it is better than 12 hour days for me. I am not really sure how much I would see my children if I worked days. It does do damage to the body, but the way I look at it God is in full control of how many days I get down here anyway. Working at night makes it wonderful to be able to be a day mom and a night mom at times. I get to go to all the school stuff and also have time for myself during the day after I sleep a while. Summer is hard on the body for sleep. I get hot sleeping and hate all of the sunrays that come in from the window, but fall and winter are great months for sleeping. I just chalk it up to "all in days work." I would not want to work in the day time due to all the politics and "outpatient" clinic in LD. However, working at night in a rural hospital in LD can be scary at times, but I have learned don't ever be afraid to call the MD for anything--he is getting paid...

Right now it is working great, but who knows I always like to keep my doors open for anything new. I am considering going back to get my masters to teach nursing at a nearby college when my little one goes to school. Nursing is so versatile!!! Thanks goodness especially for those of us who love change.

I have to admit the $$$$$ is great and also the flexibility. My job works with my schedule majorly... Night--time employees are hard to replace---doesn't hurt to use that to your advantage at times.

Hey guess what those depositions are over thank GOD!!! I did OK. Thanks so much for all the help/advice/suggestions.

Love, mommajoe

Gwennia · Jun 18, 2003

One of the things I love about nursing is how it uses science, but at the same time does not get bogged down with it. Sure, everything gives you cancer these days, especially WORRYING ABOUT IT. Live you own life in the most convenient way, but don't forget to enjoy it in the meantime. The extra money doing nightshift may, for some, provide the resources to go and spend that much needed time in the sun. Please don't get swamped by someone's calculations regarding your time left on earth. For all you know you may switch over to dayshift and get run over by the seven o'clock bus. (being funny, not disrespectful).

HI nurse · Jun 19, 2003

i have worked nites for over ten year and i died at least two years before i was supposed to. but working nites did wonders for my sense of humor

Liddle Noodnik · Jun 19, 2003

Originally posted by HI nurse
i have worked nites for over ten year and i died at least two years before i was supposed to. but working nites did wonders for my sense of humor

Giggle!

Sometimes it FEELS like I'm dead! LOL!

Tonite, I am back at work after one nite off, had a 3 hr nap, I feel like I could go in the bedroom and sleep another 8 hrs! Groannn!

sbic56, BSN, RN · Jun 19, 2003

Originally posted by HI nurse
i have worked nites for over ten year and i died at least two years before i was supposed to. but working nites did wonders for my sense of humor

:rotfl: :rotfl:

kmlunar · Jun 19, 2003

I have only been a nurse for a year but have worked nights for most of my 26 yr medical career. I am healthy, have few problems sleeping during the day and still manage to have an active daytime life! I think that perhaps I am a natural night person and will be very interested to see if being so shrtens my lifespan! Being an eternal optimist I sincerely doubt it!!!!!!

kmlunar · Jun 19, 2003

Just wanted to add that by working nights(12hr) I get to spend more quality time with my patients, have to deal less with the politics and can avoid the absolute insanity of to many people trying to do too many jobs in to short a time span in not enough space! ie total insanity!

PlanetCaroline · Jun 24, 2003

My research methods is a bit rusty but...

Associations cannot determine cause/effect relationships. Working nights doesn't make you sick, but there may be an unknown common factor among night nurses that is related to colorectal cancer. Here's my guess of the mystery carcinogen...

Junk Food! My all nighters are often accompanied by vending machine cuisine. I'm guessing night nurses may not be eating enough fiber.

Guess I'll be bringing my homemade broccoli/granola bars (fortified with raisins & tree bark) to work with me. --Caroline

Originally posted by Talino
"The researchers studied 78,586 women taking part in a long-running program called the Nurses' Health Study. The nurses who worked night shifts at least three times a month for 15 years or more had a 35 percent greater risk of colon or rectal cancer. "

http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/conditions/06/04/cancer.nightshifts.reut/index.html

gojack · Jul 2, 2003

I don't know a nice way to say it, but some of these comments are truly clueless.

Night is not the time to be skating on a ward until 8 in the morning without a break. It is a sign of how debased American medicine is, that corporate care mandates that we do this. We, as nurses, should be demanding that we have a nap break of 2 hours in the middle of the night, to keep from killing ourselves. Oh, but some of you say you don't even believe that night work is destructive to mind and body?!!!!

And you will probably respond, but what about the patients... how can we be sleeping between 4-6 AM?

Use some imagination, for a change, will you? We need to let our patients sleep, and we need to stagger our own work in a sane manner. Of course, since hospitals have been changed into "healthcare" factories with sappy campaigns to maintain product line at optimum., etc.... the patient and nurse be damned, right? That's what management wants for both groups of sad, sleep-deprived souls to sheeplikedly accept.

I despair when I see nurses writing things like "I love night shift! I prefer it..." What is really the truth for most of us, is that the hospitals have become such madhouses in the day, that most of us who do nights are trying to seek refuge from doctors, administrators, and YES-YES-YES, some of our fellow nurses who want to parade themselves as big shots. So don't smog that up with silliness about being a "night person" and blah-blah-blah. And that you are so much smarter than other night nurses who don't live healthfully and what not. What garbage.

Pretty sad when nurses cannot even be unamiously clear that night shift is a killer. What other parts of medical knowledge are these nurses missing, with their tooo much supposedly positive thinking? Lets' take care of our patients by stopping the abuse that we are employed to dish out at nights, and by stopping the abuse we in turn receive by idiots that run these hospital temples of doom. They consider us a group of dummies for doing what they wouldn't do themselves for a second...... these damned idiot professional administrator class that has made US medicine more and more the scourge of the the industrialized world. LOOK AT THE STATS...... These hospital routines are killing staff and patient alike, while we try to just eke out a living and keep our patients for dying off in even worse numbers than the administrative routines would force.

END THE MADNESS.... Corporate medicine is elderly abuse... and it's abusing the bedside caregiver, too.

hogan4736, BSN, RN · Jul 2, 2003

Not just elderly abuse...

You are correct on soooo many points...

Though I do believe that SOME people are cut out for nights...

I layed awake MANY a night as a seven year old (at 2 in the morning, listening to the radio, my only "late night friend") wondering if others suffered my fate!!

I digress...

"Corporate medicine" IS the norm jack...Get over it!

Do your best in your allotted shift...

Work hard and do well

Set a good example for those around you!

It's the only way nursing will flourish!

(Burned from the ER...Here's to diversity within nursing), Sean

hogan4736, BSN, RN · Jul 2, 2003

Staggering. sleeping on night shifts?!!!??

It's a genius dream (I had it many years ago during a nap in a psych ward at 0300)...

But w/ "corporate medicine" it will likely NEVER come to fruition...

"What, PAY you for sleeping"

Signed,

Corporate, MBA (used to be ICU RN) idiot!!!