L&D nurses staying late

[MidnightTang]

I have been a neurology nurse for 5 years and am considering a career change. There is an L&D position open that I am considering applying to, but I am concerned that the hours might not work for me. It's a 7 to 7 day shift, which is what I do now, but I need to know what happens if the shift ends and your patient is in the delivery room. Do you still report off to the next shift or do you stay until the end? I can feasibly stay over an hour if necessary, but I have a 2 year old and a husband who works evening shift, so I can't stay at work indefinitely. I would love to apply for this position, but I don't want to get to far into the process and discover that it's not compatible with schedule. Can anyone give my the skinny on how the L&D schedule works?

Thanks,

Anne

[melmarie23, MSN, RN]

you report off as usual and leave. Sometimes you do miss those births by just a short half hour to hour.

but if delivery is imminent, I stay. And its me and the next shift RN that assists with the delivery and then she takes over for recovery.

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

And remember that there will be charting to do also. It is physically impossible to do all the hands-on tasks for a delivery AND do the charting, unless your facility provides a scribe whose sole purpose in life is to make your computers happy.

[MidnightTang]

Well, I applied and was called to schedule a phone interview 3 days later! I thought I'd be waiting forever to find anything out. I'm super excited and super nervous about the interview. I figure I'll ask about the schedule if I get a little further through the interview process. I don't want anyone to think I'm unwilling to work hard and get my job done. I just have to pick my daughter up from daycare before they close and, preferrably, before she falls asleep.