Calling in for no sleep

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On Friday I was scheduled a 12 hour shift that went to 3:30am. The Monday after I am scheduled to work at 0700. I had one night to try and totally change my sleep schedule. That being said it's 3am and I haven't slept a wink. I need at least 5 hours of sleep to function and that obviously isn't going to happen. Is it acceptable to call in because you haven't slept?

  • Let's see what all of you fine Nurses this about this sleepless situation of mine. I work night. I was off for three days and scheduled for 4 straight shifts which I usually do no problem.
  • On my 3rd day off, I was woken up at 6am by staffing asking me to come to work. I told them I cannot as that would put me 5 day s in a row. Since I was awake, I went about my day and started enjoying my last day off in the city.
  • Around 12pm, my manager calls me begging me to work and she would take me off on Saturday. So that would put me work 3 days, off one, then work one. Which is no problem I do this often and she needed my help, so I did it.
  • By the time I got back from the city, I had to get ready and iron my clothes but sleep is not an issue yet as I still feel rested.
  • My shift ends and I get home at 9am due to commute. Go to bed at 9:30 and for whatever reason wake up at 10:45. No big deal- I'll just read and go back to bed at noon. No problem. Noon comes around and I go back to bed.
  • 1pm, 2pm, 3pm comes around and still no sleep. I'm exhausted but no sleep. I call my manager and I ask her if she can put me back on Saturday night and take me off tonight since by 7pm I'll be going on 36 hours no sleep and by the end of my shift it will be 48 hours no sleep and I don't think it's safe.
  • My manager flips out on me. Tells me that it's my problem that I am unable to sleep and that I will surely pay the consequences for this terrible crime. She YELLS, "if you're going to call out, call staffing," and hangs up the phone.
  • I still wasn't sure if I was going to call out. By 3:30 I called staffing and took a personal as worked in by our union contract.
  • I am certain I made the right decision. I worked very hard for my nursing license and I don't want to God forbid put my license in danger. More importantly, how many of you would want an ICU nurse with 45 minutes of sleep in the last 36 hours to take care of your family member? It's not safe. My patient's lives are in my hands and I must monitor them and keep them alive.
  • I understand my manager's anger- she's not mad at me, she's mad that she's short staffed. It is what it is. But I still did what was right for me and my patients. No regrets.

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AnnoyedNurse said:
  • Let's see what all of you fine Nurses this about this sleepless situation of mine. I work night. I was off for three days and scheduled for 4 straight shifts which I usually do no problem.
  • On my 3rd day off, I was woken up at 6am by staffing asking me to come to work. I told them I cannot as that would put me 5 day s in a row. Since I was awake, I went about my day and started enjoying my last day off in the city.
  • Around 12pm, my manager calls me begging me to work and she would take me off on Saturday. So that would put me work 3 days, off one, then work one. Which is no problem I do this often and she needed my help, so I did it.
  • By the time I got back from the city, I had to get ready and iron my clothes but sleep is not an issue yet as I still feel rested.
  • My shift ends and I get home at 9am due to commute. Go to bed at 9:30 and for whatever reason wake up at 10:45. No big deal- I'll just read and go back to bed at noon. No problem. Noon comes around and I go back to bed.
  • 1pm, 2pm, 3pm comes around and still no sleep. I'm exhausted but no sleep. I call my manager and I ask her if she can put me back on Saturday night and take me off tonight since by 7pm I'll be going on 36 hours no sleep and by the end of my shift it will be 48 hours no sleep and I don't think it's safe.
  • My manager flips out on me. Tells me that it's my problem that I am unable to sleep and that I will surely pay the consequences for this terrible crime. She YELLS, "if you're going to call out, call staffing," and hangs up the phone.
  • I still wasn't sure if I was going to call out. By 3:30 I called staffing and took a personal as worked in by our union contract.
  • I am certain I made the right decision. I worked very hard for my nursing license and I don't want to God forbid put my license in danger. More importantly, how many of you would want an ICU nurse with 45 minutes of sleep in the last 36 hours to take care of your family member? It's not safe. My patient's lives are in my hands and I must monitor them and keep them alive.
  • I understand my manager's anger- she's not mad at me, she's mad that she's short staffed. It is what it is. But I still did what was right for me and my patients. No regrets.

You pretty much set yourself up for that one. The next time they ask you to work outside of your regular schedule, just say no.

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Sour Lemon said:
You pretty much set yourself up for that one. The next time they ask you to work outside of your regular schedule, just say no.

How is that his fault? People switch shifts all the time and rarely do people have the same work days each week. It could have happened after any shift. He was trying to help out.

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Davey Do said:
Sleep is so very important,RNINIA5. If you truly believe you are putting your patients in danger, then call off.

However, and this is a big however, are you absolutely sure you can not adequately function on 5 hours sleep? I am one who has always needed their 6 to 8 hours of good sleep in order to function comfortably, and I've functioned adequately sleeping 2 hours between 12 hour shifts. I once believed I was off and was called in while getting ready for bed after drinking a glass of wine and went 30+ hours before finally getting some sleep.

The way I dealt with sleep deprivation was to get into the altered state of mind, something I learned while working in Chemical Dependency. In order to focus and concentrate, I kept an internal conversation going on, on the subject at hand. I took everything one step at a time. If a traumatic situation occurred, the adrenalin rush came in handy.

If I would always live my life the way I do when sleep-deprived, I would make fewer mistakes.

Hmmm... maybe I should!

You've just inspired an illuminating revelation which will be life changing for me, RNINIA5!

Thanks!

Studies with drivers and response times have shown that while sleep deprived, we are functioning at a level similar to being under the influence of alcohol. The scariest part is we THINK we are functioning just fine. Not so.

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cleback said:
How is that his fault? People switch shifts all the time and rarely do people have the same work days each week. It could have happened after any shift. He was trying to help out.

Have you ever heard the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."? ...or how about, "Don't bite off more than you can chew."?

When you agree to something unreasonable, then yes, you're setting yourself up. Rarely do people care about good intentions when you back out of a commitment, they only care about you following through with what you agreed to do.

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I'm starting to learn to think about my schedule ahead of time before accepting a shift. Sounds simple, but its easy to think, oh, I'll be fine, Ill be able to get sleep. My sleep just did a 180, and Im screwed for tomorrow morning. I woke up at 3pm, work til 9pm tonight, and have to be at work for a 10 hour shift at 7am tomorrow. 7am is when my body will be telling me its bedtime. Sigh. But its my set schedule and I didn't expect a complete 180 in my sleep routine.

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Sour Lemon said:
Have you ever heard the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."? ...or how about, "Don't bite off more than you can chew."?

When you agree to something unreasonable, then yes, you're setting yourself up. Rarely do people care about good intentions when you back out of a commitment, they only care about you following through with what you agreed to do.

I agree. Good deeds do come with their punishments but this is a situation where I knew that I had to call out regardless of what I wanted. I don't like that my coworkers may have to work short handed anymore than my managers likes to have to have her unit be understaffed. But, with that said, I learned my lesson. I'm going to be more of a stickler when it comes to my sleep schedule. I usually don't have trouble with sleeping, but I purchased Benadryl and will keep it around for these days where I see I am unable to fall asleep.

Regardless of my managers response, good or bad, my commitment was to work and I couldn't and the reason doesn't really matter to her. In my eyes, I did the right thing and I don't feel bad about it. I would feel terrible if something happened to a patient if I went in 36 hours no sleep. Hey, it's just an occurance- I think it's written in our contract that we're allowed certain call offs so it is what it is.

My point in sharing my experience was to shed some light that lack of sleep in nursing is surely unsafe. Only you know your limit and once you reach your limit, take any action necessary to safeguard your license, your patient, and your facility. In the grand scheme of things, I'm sure our managers and CNO's would rather us call-off of the rare occasion of true sleeplessness than come to work and be the cause of a multimillion dollar lawsuit.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.
AnnoyedNurse said:
Only you know your limit and once you reach your limit, take any action necessary to safeguard your license, your patient, and your facility.

Or even your own safety on the road, or that of other drivers -- people fall asleep at the wheel all the time.

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CountryMomma said:
I have had a coworker call out for not enough sleep. She wasn't punished... it was her PTO...

...but none of us felt very kindly towards her after absorbing her shift, her excuse spread through the gossip channels, and people stopped being willing to trade shifts with her, cover for lunch, etc.

You had time to sleep.

Having the time to sleep and being able to when your sleep schedule gets tossed upside down are 2 very different things

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I have trouble understanding why there are so many nurses/healthcare workers who are so seemingly proud of consistently over working themselves or working with little to know sleep. It makes no sense to me. We are in the field of science yet we ignore all the studies about the effects of night shift (I am and always have been night shift due to necessity} and lack of sleep on our physiological as well as physiological health. It is one thing to wreck ourselves but our jobs are such that we are also putting others lives in danger. It also baffles me that we are in a caring profession yet we tend to care little about out co-workers. I have SLE and until last year a multi handicapped son and in 9yrs I missed only 5 days. A couple of them were for lack of sleep. I am not ashamed of that as I feel I was putting the well being of those I was caring for as well as fellow drivers ahead of my own desire for people to approve of me at all times. That desire to please everyone has gradually fallen away over the years and this last year it is almost gone. You never know what your coworkers are going through. We always wonder why we don't get much respect from management among others. It is simple we nurses are rarely ever on the same page as far as standing up for ourselves and we tend to not respect one another. Unfortunately we are leading by example and in a lot (NOT ALL) but a lot of the time we are not setting good examples ie. working short, working too many hours, allowing ourselves to be talked into do unsafe assignments and weird unhealthy schedules etc... Just my opinion.

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Specializes in Psych (25 years), Medical (15 years).

But- wait a minute- why would someone want to call in for no sleep?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24999[/ATTACH]

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bellcollector said:
I have trouble understanding why there are so many nurses/healthcare workers who are so seemingly proud of consistently over working themselves or working with little to know sleep. It makes no sense to me. We are in the field of science yet we ignore all the studies about the effects of night shift (I am and always have been night shift due to necessity} and lack of sleep on our physiological as well as physiological health.

Exactly so. Why are nurses proud of the fact that we are putting not just ourselves but our patients as risk?

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