Do you day shift nurses ever feel an exasperated yet defensive/angry response to the next shift when you failed to do something you should have done during your shift and it is passed on to them?
I feel a mix of exasperation, apology, and defensive anger. Yes I failed as a nurse because I did not cover this thing during my shift. I covered 5 other things instead and so maybe I was prioritizing wrong.
It creates a general passive aggressive vibe between day shift and night shift where I feel I'm walking on eggshells and can't ever get anything right for them. Yes night shift sucks. I'm not in their shoes. But do they realize all the things we balance during the day?
In the end it makes me look like I missed this major thing during my shift and am a bad nurse, when, well I was balancing 5 other things and discharges (night shift does not do discharges) and 100 things going crazy between 5 pm and 7 pm.
How do you dayshift nurses improve in this area?
I feel exasperated because something had to give, yet I am a repeat offender in this area. Advice please. I know I could use some humility. But I'm mainly just angry and exhausted and struggle to face the night shift nurses the next day/shift.
It’s a 24 hour job. I can’t get everything done on day shift. There’s too much to do. Somethings get passed to nights. Honestly, I don’t care if someone gets a little passive aggressive with me. It’s 24 hours.
where I work, we are pretty good at telling the next shift about why something didn't get done (code, RRT, etc). My biggest pet peeve is PRN medications not given. Like a pt hasn't had a BM in 3 days and no one ever gave PRN Miralax/Senna. Or someone complains of pain and no one has given PRN Tylenol. It's like, unless it's scheduled, they don't give it.
aint no one giving PRN miralax cus aint no one wanna clean up doodoo LOL!
I just want to know what I need to do. If you didn't do it, that's fine; just give me a heads up. Most of the time, it's something that couldn't be done, either because staffing was terrible, there were too many emergencies, or something necessary for the task was missing (med, equipment, order).
Nights are hard. Because the on call resident is covering for so many patients, it can be darn near impossible to get a doctor to do anything until you call a rapid.
Just today, we were talking about this with a new attending who was wondering why patients who were stable during the day went downhill at night. Not sundowning, but medical declines. Another nurse (former night shift) and I explained that if it's not an emergency, it's really hard to get a covering doctor to take action. So while the regular team during the day will intervene when things start to go south, the night float (who doesn't know the patient and has a phone ringing off the hook) will probably put it off until the issue resolves itself or becomes a full-blown crisis.
I can't tell you how many times I've had a night nurse notice an issue, come up with a reasonable solution, and not be able to put it into action. Then I take that information to the day team, and get the order I need with a 30-second conversation. Day shift has more tasks, more procedures, and more new orders, but we also have more resources.
On 1/19/2021 at 9:55 PM, coffeeandvendingmachines said:
Do you day shift nurses ever feel an exasperated yet defensive/angry response to the next shift when, you failed to do something you should have done during your shift and it is passed on to them? I feel a mix of exasperation, apology, and defensive anger. Yes I failed as a nurse because I did not cover this thing during my shift. I covered 5 other things instead and so maybe I was prioritizing wrong. It creates a general passive aggressive vibe between day shift and night shift where I feel I'm walking on eggshells and can't ever get anything right for them. Yes night shift sucks. I'm not in their shoes. But do they realize all the things we balance during the day? So in the end it makes me look like I missed this major thing during my shift and am a bad nurse, when, well I was balancing 5 other things and discharges (night shift does not do discharges) and 100 things going crazy between 5 pm and 7 pm. How do you dayshift nurses improve in this area? I feel exasperated because something had to give, yet I am a repeat offender in this area. Advice please. I know I could use some humility. But I'm mainly just angry and exhausted and struggle to face the night shift nurses the next day/shift.
I’ve worked nights my entire nursing career and what I can tell you is this....you should absolutely not feel bad about passing things on to the next shift. There is a reason for 24 hour care. In most hospitals, LTC, or anywhere really, with maybe the exception of Hospice, there are NEVER enough hours in a shift to get everything done, PERIOD! Any nurse that gives you *** about it, is just plain ridiculous or many times, lazy. I have NEVER had a “quiet” shift on nights....EVER... I could never understand how staff were caught sleeping, because I never sat down long enough to fall asleep. I also never expected to arrive at work and have everything done for me, so I could make myself a four course meal or play solitaire for 12 hours. I used to have similar issues with on coming nurses. They would sigh, and click their tongues during report and I could have cared less. There isn’t a job on the planet that doesn’t require you to work, if there were, it’d be called “vacation”. You can’t do it all.
Specializes in Mental health, substance abuse, geriatrics, PCU.
4 hours ago, LC0929 said:
In most hospitals, LTC, or anywhere really, with maybe the exception of Hospice, there are NEVER enough hours in a shift to get everything done, PERIOD!
I agree with everything in your post but I don't see why Hospice would be the exception. Many hospice patients require aggressive symptom control especially if they're inpatient hospice or in a hospice house.
So we night shift nurses have to finish up day shift's work and do our tasks as well and night shift should be OK with this? Hmm...OK. God forbid a night shift nurse leaves something behind for day shift. Many times there's a free charge available(someone many times is not available at night) or a charge with max three patients during the day, why not ask for help? I understand there may be a lot more going on during the day but the flippant, "Well, I didn't get the second unit of blood started after the first unit completed at 10am because I was busy" attitude really irks me.
So we night shift nurses have to finish up day shift's work and do our tasks as well and night shift should be OK with this? Hmm...OK. God forbid a night shift nurse leaves something behind for day shift. Many times there's a free charge available(someone many times is not available at night) or a charge with max three patients during the day, why not ask for help? I understand there may be a lot more going on during the day but the flippant, "Well, I didn't get the second unit of blood started after the first unit completed at 10am because I was busy" attitude really irks me.
LOL do you really think a nurse who gave a unit of blood that finished at 10 would actually put off giving a second needed unit all the way until 1900 just because they were busy?
I have worked night shift for a while and it never upset me when day shift didn’t do something. I wasn’t there for the day and can’t tell another nurse how to prioritize. I just make my own new priorities for the night and start getting crap done, it’s a job!
I do seriously hate leaving tasky things for the next nurse, though. But usually people are way cool about it and understand when things were crazy and there’s still things to get done. As others have said, it’s a 24 hour job for a reason. Especially in the ICU, hey things happen fast and we just all tread water sometimes!
I agree with everything in your post but I don't see why Hospice would be the exception. Many hospice patients require aggressive symptom control especially if they're inpatient hospice or in a hospice house.
Hi Moon,
I apologize! In my head I was comparing a situation like CICU to Hospice or End of Life care. Patients who are on multiple drips, dressings, etc., not to mention a heavier patient assignment in general. I didn’t mean to imply anything negative. ?
I usually stayed to clean up any of my messes (so that day shift acknowledged I wasn’t just trying to get over on them. My shift ended at 7:30 and sometimes I would stay until 8-8:30). Anything I couldn’t complete I would hand off and they usually understood. However, I expected the same courtesy. Don’t just run out the door before attempting to complete certain tasks. Especially ones we couldn’t complete at night.
Some nights we would each get 3-4 new patient admissions. Day shift hardly got admissions, and if they did, they wouldn’t arrive until after 7pm.
Specializes in Pediatrics, Pediatric Float, PICU, NICU.
11 minutes ago, Newishnurse1995 said:
I usually stayed to clean up any of my messes (so that day shift acknowledged I wasn’t just trying to get over on them. My shift ended at 7:30 and sometimes I would stay until 8-8:30). Anything I couldn’t complete I would hand off and they usually understood. However, I expected the same courtesy. Don’t just run out the door before attempting to complete certain tasks. Especially ones we couldn’t complete at night.
Some nights we would each get 3-4 new patient admissions. Day shift hardly got admissions, and if they did, they wouldn’t arrive until after 7pm.
No shift should be staying an hour after their shift for something that isn’t time sensitive which they couldn’t get to - nursing is 24 hours.
We need to stop having this mentality about “leaving messes” and the expectation that comes with it such as an order that was placed 15 minutes before you give report is something you should stay to complete because technically it was placed on your shift - no.
The courtesy I give the off going shift is to let them know that they are free to go home because I’m here for 12 hours and can tidy up the little things they weren’t able to get to for whatever legitimate reason. No really, go home, I’m here all day.
No shift should be staying an hour after their shift for something that isn’t time sensitive which they couldn’t get to - nursing is 24 hours.
We need to stop having this mentality about “leaving messes” and the expectation that comes with it such as an order that was placed 15 minutes before you give report is something you should stay to complete because technically it was placed on your shift - no.
The courtesy I give the off going shift is to let them know that they are free to go home because I’m here for 12 hours and can tidy up the little things they weren’t able to get to for whatever legitimate reason. No really, go home, I’m here all day.
??♀️ That’s how I do things. I would feel absolutely terrible for leaving certain things that I couldn’t get to the next shift (starting a foley, giving blood, etc). If I had a bad night, most things were ordered an hour or two ago. I refuse to do anything that was ordered within 10-15 minutes prior to the start of the next shift.
I usually stayed to clean up any of my messes (so that day shift acknowledged I wasn’t just trying to get over on them. My shift ended at 7:30 and sometimes I would stay until 8-8:30). Anything I couldn’t complete I would hand off and they usually understood. However, I expected the same courtesy. Don’t just run out the door before attempting to complete certain tasks. Especially ones we couldn’t complete at night.
Some nights we would each get 3-4 new patient admissions. Day shift hardly got admissions, and if they did, they wouldn’t arrive until after 7pm.
Choosing to stay an hour late is bad enough, but expecting others to do so is crazy-talk ...unless you're talking about a code blue at shift change, or maybe a surprise "have the patient ready for surgery in ten minutes" new order at 07:25.
A lot of employers would write a nurse up for hanging around to do tasks that could have been passed on. Give yourself (and others) a break.
LovingLife123
1,592 Posts
It’s a 24 hour job. I can’t get everything done on day shift. There’s too much to do. Somethings get passed to nights. Honestly, I don’t care if someone gets a little passive aggressive with me. It’s 24 hours.