Day/Night Rotation?

[Bluebolt]

I'm seeing this trend of travel contracts insisting you rotate between days and nights in your short 13 week assignment. I'm curious if anyone has done this and what their experience has been. Would they expect you to rotate each week between 1st and 3rd shift? Perhaps the first 6 weeks on days and last 7 weeks on nights?

I just don't understand how this would work without really torturing your body and messing up your circadian rhythm.

I would also assume if a facility would insist on this then the pay must be exceptionally higher than normal contracts, only to notice the pay is usually average.

I've mostly noticed this in Hawaii, where I'm considering my next assignment. Does anyone have an experience in this rotation schedule, especially in Hawaii?

[HikingNinja, BSN, MSN, DNP, RN, APRN, NP]

I recently turned down a contract that was set up this way. The written contract stated D/E/N rotation. My recruiter said it was 2weeks days, 2 weeks mids, 2 weeks nights rotating until the contract ends. She was honest with me though and stated this particular hospital, from what her other travelers reported, never put you on days, just rotated between the mids and nights. I wasn't aware of this when I was submitted and never actually interviewed, just was offered the job. It was in CA. I'm not sure about Hawaii. I do days and mids only and couldn't imagine going back to night shift even for two weeks at a time. Plenty of other gigs out there to choose from.

[Soliloquy, MSN, APRN, NP]

I do this now but I'm use to it from my staff job. It's a nice change of pace and I'm glad one particular shift wasn't written into my contract because I was super depressed and stressed out on day shift because of the turn over rate of the patients on days despite short staffing (typical stereo typical hca facility nonsense). So being able to rotate to night shifts has been a blessing.

[wanderlust99]

Some hospitals just work that way, even their permanent staff work a day/night rotate. Not switching back every other week, more like every 6 weeks.

I have completed contracts and I have lucked out and by request have been placed mainly on one shift. My last job they let the travelers state our preference, mine was days, so they put me on days because that's where the needs were, but my contract stated day/night rotate. I worked one night shift in 6 months as a favor when they were really short. Another job, they said I would rotate day/nights and I said can I just do nights and not rotate? And they let me do that. So it can be negotiable, but you are there to fill their needs so you need to be flexible.