Medical Struggles with Shift Work

Nurses Disabilities

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Hello! I am thinking of becoming a nurse. I have a movement disorder that affects me only during sleep, which would make shift-work very difficult, but maybe not impossible with certain limits.

I really want to work as a nurse-midwife in a hospital. My doctor believes that I could manage some shift-work, but my limit would be flip-flopping between day and night shifts. I wouldn't mind night-shifts, as long as they were all night-shifts. Twelve hour shifts are totally fine. Working my share of weekends and holidays is totally fine as well.

I've done a bunch of reading online, and it seems like this might be possible, but my mother, who is not a nurse, keeps telling me that it is not.

Will it be possible to find just night shifts, or even better, someday, after acquiring some seniority, just day-shifts? The day-shifts could be twelve hour shifts as well. In the worst case scenario, does anyone think the solution would be explaining my situation to whomever makes the schedules (not to jump the line for seniority and get only day-shifts, but to limit myself to only night-shifts,

Is this totally unrealistic? I'll have to do something else if it is :( Thanks for your thoughts!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

It is possible to do all nights. All days might present a challenge.

Follow you physicians advice. Keep a regular schedule. I have had sleep motion disorder for years. You figure it out IF you want to. You have to have the midset...This will work.

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Thanks for your opinion! It's exactly that, a regular schedule, whatever it is, days or nights. I should have used those words :)

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