Difference between night and day nurses

[Joe V]

Are there any differences between night and day nurses? What do you notice that stands out the most to you? eg. patients, age, energy, etc

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[Chisca, RN]

Life expectancy?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

In my humble opinion there's a heck of a lot more teamwork on the night shift. I work nights and sense that my coworkers have more camaraderie than the folks on days. It is crucial that those of us on nights pull together as a team to get the job done since there's typically less of us with fewer resources on which we can call.

Night shift is overlooked at my workplace, but I'd rather fly under the radar. I don't want to schmooze with managers who bother the day shift staff with huddles, questions, meetings, complaints, added paperwork and other crap that takes precious time away from patient care.

Managers at my place of employment generally do not take the special needs of night workers into account when they force us to show up to inservices and petty meetings at noon. My shift ends at 6:30am, so a noon meeting for a night shift nurse is like making a day nurse come to a midnight meeting (read: utterly senseless).

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

TheCommuter said:

In my humble opinion there's a heck of a lot more teamwork on the night shift. I work nights and sense that my coworkers have more camaraderie than the folks on days. It is crucial that those of us on nights pull together as a team to get the job done since there's typically less of us with fewer resources on which we can call.

Night shift is overlooked at my workplace, but I'd rather fly under the radar. I don't want to schmooze with managers who bother the day shift staff with huddles, questions, meetings, complaints, added paperwork and other crap that takes precious time away from patient care.

Managers at my place of employment generally do not take the special needs of night workers into account when they force us to show up to inservices and petty meetings at noon. My shift ends at 6:30am, so a noon meeting for a night shift nurse is like making a day nurse come to a midnight meeting (read: utterly senseless).

All that ^^^^^ and here's my bag of chips:

I'm currently doing a research project about just HOW true all of this is (and it is all true). I visited nineteen hospitals in the middle of the night (700+ bed tertiary care center down to 11-bed critical access) and surveyed almost 500 night workers. I've been invited to present my findings via poster presentation at an upcoming nursing management conference in Chicago. I'll be interested to see the response from the suits...

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Oh, this too:

ALL the cool people work nights!

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

How about the noon phone calls - "do you want to come in early?", "what time did you take down that bag of fluids?", and other assorted non-emergent stuff THAT CAN WAIT UNTIL I COME IN THAT EVENING.

Ahem, sorry for the shouting.

Once, I was called 3 times between 1000 and 1300 asking if I wanted to come in early. Why no, what I really want to do is sleep.

PS - to be fair, one time, when I was working dayshift, I was called at 0130 and asked if I would come in early. The answer was still no.

[Do-over, ASN, RN]

meanmaryjean - I hope you will share some of your project with us!

[MassED, BSN, RN]

In regards to the life expectancy comment: I think that comes from those that never sleep (or don't ferociously guard their sleep time), don't eat well, likely drink too much, are miserable, and do not take care of themselves. That can be found on any shift. I think that the night shifters have to work a bit harder at looking after themselves, though. Once you know that, I think the mortality rates are probably the same as other shift workers.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

meanmaryjean said:

All that ^^^^^ and here's my bag of chips:

I'm currently doing a research project about just HOW true all of this is (and it is all true). I visited nineteen hospitals in the middle of the night (700+ bed tertiary care center down to 11-bed critical access) and surveyed almost 500 night workers. I've been invited to present my findings via poster presentation at an upcoming nursing management conference in Chicago. I'll be interested to see the response from the suits...

I would LOVE to see your presentation too! Can you post a small part of it on here??

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

MassED said:

I would LOVE to see your presentation too! Can you post a small part of it on here??

Sure- as soon as I finish the stretch of nights in the PICU I'm currently trying to survive!!!

[Pepper The Cat, BSN, RN]

Do we really need yet another thread about how great the night shift people are and how rotten the day shift are?

Frankly, I went in once on a night to,help,out because they were so short. Not one of those super cool, great team workers,spoke to me all shift. Never again will I help out nights.

[J-Swish]

Experiences vary per shift depending on the people and the work environment that surrounds you.