So...as a brand new grad from nursing school, I was wondering if this is a unexpected, albeit NORMAL side effect from working in a hospital.
I first noticed this into my 3rd week of working 12 hr shifts. When I would arrive home after work, I would literally hear call lights, monitors, telephones RINGING in my ears... even when I was sequestered away in the comfort of my home! The pitches and intervals were even the same--which I thought was freaky. Try as I might, I could not control the frequency or presence of the noise, and I just had to endure the 'phantom' rings until my unconsciousness finally released me.
I'm now into my 6th week of hospital staff nursing, and I'm still bothered by these auditory 'hallucinations.' I was just wondering if this is a common phenomenon that is a result of the excessive noise stimulation nurses are subjected to...?? Or am I just going crazy...?
If there are BYCHANCE any fellow sufferers of this, please feel free to recommend how to
rid your mind of the phantom beeps...they are interfering with my sleep schedule. :-/
When I was running as a volunteer paramedic on my local fre dept, I'd hear the first "tone" of our multi-tone ambulance dispatch notification when I was out & about. Instant adrenaline dump! Eventually, that response mellowed to more of a "what now?":yawn:
First balloon pump patient I ever had....old balloon pump, alarmed every time someone looked at it. 12 hrs of alarming balloon pump...uggggg. Go home that night, exhausted and immediately go to sleep. Alarm goes off the next morning and what do I think it is....damn balloon pump! I had been working on that stupid thing all night! LOL
It will get better! The more comfortable you become at work the less those things will bother you. Try some good quiet relaxation on the way home.
This happened to me frequently with tele alarms, when I was a tech and worked nights.
I used to come straight home & go to bed, with no real decompression time in between. I lived 5 minutes away from the hospital, so the drive wasn't enough to relax me. Now that I'm on days, I don't go straight to bed after work, so that helps quite a bit and I've gotten a lot better at tuning out the alarms now that I've been around them longer.
I laughed when I saw this discussion topic title b/c I can totally relate. When I think about it, I can still hear ECG monitor alarms from the unit I was assigned to during my adult health clinical rotation in nursing school. They went off constantly b/c of disconnected leads. I hope it gets better for you though!
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
I sometimes hear ventilator alarms in my sleep -- and call bells and monitor alarms and the danged phone ringing. I have a fan, but I still hear alarms! It depends upon how many days I've worked in a row.
some of the alarms i try to prevent with my hourly checks....unfortunately alarms are a necessary evil...they are there to watch your patient when you cannot...and everybody knows you cant be in 5 places at once.
I had this same problem, tho not from a hospital setting. I worked in a call center, and the ring tone in our headsets was torture. I would hear it in my sleep, and it would jarr me awake, or I would have dreams I was on a call, my BF woke me up and told me that I was 'typing' in my sleep while yelling at a client... lol. Stuff like that happened to me all the time until I left that job. But taking enough time to decompress, listen to some music in the car, or on silent, whatever works for you to clear your head of work.
whichone'spink, BSN, RN
1,473 Posts
Yes, I hear call bells all the time