How often are you forced to work nights?

[yerbluez]

Hello all,

I'm not a nurse, but have an interest in the profession as the liberal arts education has not appealed to me so much. Everything about nursing sounds good, and it does sound flexible, but I keep reading about night shifts and see a lot of jobs advertising night shifts only. I am not the type of person to stay awake all night and then have to sleep through the days. I wouldn't want this mainly because I feel the schedule would have a bad effect on my social life. I just can't sleep in the middle of they day.

So my question is, if you're starting out as a nurse.. is it often that you're forced to take up a schedule that you really don't like? What have your experiences been? It's supposed to be a flexible career... I like the 12 hour shift idea, but I would only want to do days.

thanks,

Sean

[lpnflorida]

I can not but think as to why it use to be that new grads did orientation on the day shift as that was where there was more supervision and then moved to either afternoon or night shift. For the 12 hour workers to nights.It was for the benefit of having a slower pace to hone their skills gain confidence. It was not meant as a punish for being new, it was to help them grow without all the continuous chaos of continous order changes, procedures, management demands etc. etc. New grads also once upon a time had no choice but to start out full-time as again it was recognized they needed it to hone their skills as oppose to only working a shift or two a week. prn was unheard of except for an experienced nurse who had already worked in the hospital as a regular staff.

That is no longer the case, many new grads now start on day shifts some fulltime, some part time, perhaps some prn. For the brightest, best time management skills they succeed, for those who are not they often struggle more so than they might have on another shift or working so little.

It is one point to consider.