And then they called me at Midnight

[Tait]

I work nights, always have, and until I choose a new path, such as patient education, I probably always will. It is my favorite shift.

That being said, one tiny part of the culture that I find interesting is the respect for time.

Today I was awoken at 1210 to be asked about a Lovenox shot I hadn't charted. Now I will give her points that she looked in the PIXIS and saw that I had cancelled the pull...the first pull which was a double check on the pocket because PIXIS was being weird at the time.

So basically she woke me up at ten after midnight on my schedule to ask about a prophylactic shot being given to a patient most likely going home after her stress test.

At other times I have been called at 1030, then again at 1300 to come in early and cover shifts before I am due to work for the night.

Now I understand we don't generally have to call people in at 3am to work, but if I even so much as ring a phone to call someone off for the day before 0500 all magical Hades breaks loose.

It is just one of the interesting quirks of working night shift.

Tait

[jorjaRN]

Don't even get me started. My favorite by far is when they're calling to ask you to come in to work early...2 hours after your last shift ended and 8 hours before they want you to come in. If I was considering coming in, now I'm not, because you just woke me up in the middle of the "night" and now it will probably take me an hour to fall back asleep.

I once got a phone call about an event with another nurse/patient that I had witnessed. It was important, but they called me at 10am, and my phone is TURNED OFF, so of course I didn't answer, and they got all bent out of shape. I had three messages about it being "imperative" that I call back as soon as possible. Hello! I'm asleep. Look at my schedule that you made. I worked last night.

And our mandatory inservices start at 9am...so I don't get to bed until at least 11am, to get up at 5pm to come back in that night. No one would dream of requiring day shift to stay until 11pm for that nonsense.

[bagladyrn, RN]

I work in the education department. We try repeatedly to have classes, etc. during night shift ... but nobody shows up. We've tried every hour we can think of ... early in the shift, in the middle, late in the shift. We have done surveys on "when would be the best time..." etc. The night shift always says they want them during the night shift, but they don't show up when we do scheduld classes at nights.

So ... I guess we have the opposite problem at my hospital.

And what kind of coverage do you have on nights to enable staff to attend inservices? Since night almost always has less staff than days to cover the same number of patients, no ward clerks, no head nurse or supervisors or administrative types to watch the unit while they attend an inservice how can they attend at any time on the shift?

Try asking your night nurses about that.

[TakeTwoAspirin, MSN, RN, APRN]

I was once on call 3:00pm - 11:00pm on a Friday night. An emergency case came in at around 5:00pm and I was called out. It was a complex case and at 11:00pm they asked me if I could finish it, which I agreed to do despite the fact that I had already worked from 7:30am through 3:30pm that day. I finished the case and got out of the hospital at about 12:30am. Well, it just so happens that I was also scheduled to work 7:00am - 3:00pm the next day (Saturday) but of course at this point I was dead on my feet, so I checked with the night charge nurse before I left to see if they thought they would really need me back at 7:30am. She said, yes they would, we had a full scheduled so I went home to get a few hours sleep until my shift at 7:30am. Well, this fool called me at 3:00am in the morning. There was another emergency and she couldn't reach the person who was supposed to be on call from 11:00pm through 7:30am - did I want to do the case? I lost it on the phone, completely lost it. What the heck was she thinking? Long story short, I didn't go in for the 3:00am case, but did go in the next morning at 7:00am and got stuck in a 12-hour back case that went bad (no break, no lunch). Night Charge wouldn't even look me in the eye the next day!

[Mulan]

And what kind of coverage do you have on nights to enable staff to attend inservices? Since night almost always has less staff than days to cover the same number of patients, no ward clerks, no head nurse or supervisors or administrative types to watch the unit while they attend an inservice how can they attend at any time on the shift?

Try asking your night nurses about that.

just what I was thinking

[kcochrane]

I work in the education department. We try repeatedly to have classes, etc. during night shift ... but nobody shows up. We've tried every hour we can think of ... early in the shift, in the middle, late in the shift. We have done surveys on "when would be the best time..." etc. The night shift always says they want them during the night shift, but they don't show up when we do scheduld classes at nights.

So ... I guess we have the opposite problem at my hospital.

Well I can only speak from my experience, but it is very hard to leave the floor at night. You have bare bones staff and everyone is usually busy. Best times I found are before shifts or right after. That way you can come in early or stay a bit after.

[nursinger]

And what kind of coverage do you have on nights to enable staff to attend inservices? Since night almost always has less staff than days to cover the same number of patients, no ward clerks, no head nurse or supervisors or administrative types to watch the unit while they attend an inservice how can they attend at any time on the shift?

Try asking your night nurses about that.

When there were going to be scheduled inservices, all night staff were scheduled to work for those nights so that we could all attend. Half the staff would attend the first class and the other half would attend the next class...boom, classes finished. No staying over after 7am to attend a class that started at 8 and went until 12, no coming in on your day off and getting OT.

[resumecpr]

I too work the night shift, and the other night, the supervisor had to call the day shift nurse at 0200 because she forgot to chart a narcotic in the reconciliation book. The supervisor gave her no choice and the nurse was forced to drive a total of 90 minutes so she could autograph something. She was quite apathetic (and sleepy) but di not hold any harsh feelings. A good sport!

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I too work the night shift, and the other night, the supervisor had to call the day shift nurse at 0200 because she forgot to chart a narcotic in the reconciliation book. The supervisor gave her no choice and the nurse was forced to drive a total of 90 minutes so she could autograph something. She was quite apathetic (and sleepy) but di not hold any harsh feelings. A good sport!

Can you imagine if she had gotten in an accident at some point during that trip?

*shudder*

[Penelope_Pitstop, BSN, RN]

One night, I was due to be in at 2300. Management calls me at 1900 to see if I want to pick up a midnight shift TWO DAYS LATER. Right, because that couldn't wait until I was physically in the building four hours later? I was LIVID.

I live with my parents and they will wake me up if work is calling (thank goodness it's usually to offer me four hours of PTO), so thankfully my mother spoke with my manager and kindly informed her that I was asleep (she lied...the call woke me up and I was calling my manager every name I could think of!)

I'm the first nurse in my family, but nearly everyone is or was an auto worker and therefore worked bizarre shifts, so my family gets it. My friends, on the other hand, don't, so my cell remains in a completely separate part of the house.

[NightOwl0624]

Well I can only speak from my experience, but it is very hard to leave the floor at night. You have bare bones staff and everyone is usually busy. Best times I found are before shifts or right after. That way you can come in early or stay a bit after.

I had to do that last night - mandatory meeting 2000-2230. Worst time of the night, and I was charge, too. I got chewed out because I was 10 minutes late. It creates havoc on the floor: nurses have to cover for you when you are already short staffed.

Now, if they scheduled the in-service after 2300, or better yet around 0300 when it is usually more quiet, it wouldn't be so bad. But the "educators" don't want to be inconvenienced, so the nurses and the patients pay the price.

[nursinger]

But the "educators" don't want to be inconvenienced, so the nurses and the patients pay the price.

I would think paying a couple of instructors to do inservices to an entire night crew on nights in a facility would be more cost effective than paying the entire night shift to stay OT to do the 30min-4 hour class/inservice, but that's another topic.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

I was actually pretty impressed that our recent Optivox training had a few nights where you could pop down to the classrooms for 15 minutes in-services.

Tait