How quickly does your shift go by?

Nurses General Nursing

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How quickly does your shift go by? In general, does it drag, or do you look at the clock and wonder, "Where the hell did the time go?!" What is your specialty?

Just curious to see how peoples' opinions differ...

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It depends on the day... new admits? and other stuff like that.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.

Usually it's "wow, I've only an hour 'til report..."

That's something that I love about nursing... the days fly by.

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Specializes in Peds Critical Care, Dialysis, General.

Depends on the day, what's going on in the unit and how the computers are behaving. Somedays, it goes so quickly and others you're wondering "Is it still 0900, are the batteries dead in that clock...I've been here forever!" Work in Peds ICU.

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It really varies.

Last week I had one patient in the burn center. He was sedated, ventilated, the dressing had been done on night shift, and his vital signs were stable. I did nothing beyond the routine care of turning, taking vitals, assessments, charting, etc. He didn't even have visitors and the doctors orders were minimal. That was a very slow day.

The week before I had 2 patients in another ICU. One was going into alcohol withdrawl (in addition to his injuries that brought him to ICU) and the other patient was having cardiac issues. Both of them had multiple family members in to visit, there were many doctors orders, travel off the unit and more to do than I think I could fit into one day. That shift went by so quickly.

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Specializes in Cardiac, Hospice, Float pool, Med/Peds.

I work 12 hour nights and usually go by pretty quick. Most patients don't sleep like the world thinks. I spend a lot of quality time teaching and talking with patients and their families... Love nursing.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

My nights generally go by pretty quickly between 1900-0100, then from 01-05, it drags, then after that the morning flurry of activity makes the last little bit fly by. Of course it does depend on the night, and the patients. Some shifts are faster than others.

What really kills me, though, is when we turn the clocks back an hour. Oh my goodness, that is one LONG night...

ETA - mother-baby/nursery/antepartum nurse here.

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Really depends on the day, acuity of the patients, what gang of doctors we have that particular month and whether of not my coworkers are in a good mood or griping!!! I work in MICU

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Specializes in LTC.

Day shift go by fast for me, evening shift can be a drag sometimes.

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Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.

depends on the day. some days fly by and others drag. it depends on the patient or patients i have, whether or not i'm precepting, who i'm working with and how much sleep i got before my shift.

i work in sicu.

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It depends on how busy I am. If I have an emergency or an admit.. time flies.... otherwise, between 2-3a is usually pretty quiet and slow, and I try to get charting and other things completed by that time.

I work in the Infirmary of a prison.

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Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

I work in psych, 7p-7a. From 7p-12 midnight, it's usually pretty busy between groups, meds, snack, helping patients with getting ADL supplies, doing laundry but once midnight hits, it's hit or miss, waiting for admissions. The rest of the shift is spent doing chart checks, catching up on documentation and preparing report for the morning. If we've got a lot of admissions and they're not spaced out, I find myself barely looking at the clock. If they're spaced out and we're well staffed, I'll look up at the clock occasionally. If our unit is full, I look at the clock sometimes, waiting for someone to go ape$hit.

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