My first two months

[fil149]

Been a while since I've posted anything here so I'll just post my experience as a first time nurse. I got hired on a telemetry floor where we take anywhere between 3-5 patients depending on how "heavy" they are. It seems to me after 2 months time management is getting better but I do find if I have 4 days off in a row (gotta love the nurses schedule sometimes) I feel im out of groove on my first day back. So let me backtrack for a bit. I started out with a preceptor who I thought was nice and helpful but after a few weeks with her I found that not to be the case. After I was getting the hang of things I saw her rarely as she would be constantly in the break room with some of the other nurses. When I needed help I felt like I was bothering her. I observed other nurses who I thought would better fit me as a preceptor and luckily I was able to get a switch. The new guy I had for the past 3 weeks has been much better and after 2 months I'm about to flip to nights for the first time next monday. My manager was able to set me up with a preceptor who I think will help during nights.

Since the switch to the new preceptor I feel things are going to be much better. I'm looking forward to doing nights next week and may consider doing that permanently because they give permanent nights a 20% diff vs a 10% diff for rotating nights. I fear if go to permanent nights that it wont be as good as a learning experience for me during my first year. Any suggestions from nurses who started at nights and switched to days; was it a hard transition?

[casperx875x]

I'm 5 months in working full time nights. The learning does not stop. During the daytime you have all of the patient's attending docs rounding on them - available via a quick page all day. Once 7pm hits, you have all the on-call docs on who most of the time don't know anything about the patient. That's when your ability to communicate effectively and precisely comes in to play. You'll have to pick out the pertinent information related to the problem so that the on-call doc can adequately address the problem. Nights are definitely slower, but just because it's "after hours" doesn't mean patient's problems end. I've learned a lot working my nights and haven't second-guessed going to full-time nights at all. Transitioning back to days eventually could be tough, but I'm sure it's doable. Wishing you the best!

[Spatialized]

I fear if go to permanent nights that it wont be as good as a learning experience for me during my first year.

That is a common misconception I feel. People think that because there aren't a million things happening that there is less of a chance to learn at night: wrong. Remember, these are the same patients who are there during the day. The main difference is that they are not rolling in and out for procedures and tests. More often than not, we're takin care of them post-procedure with all that entails.

For example: we do a lot of interventional stuff on part of my unit. By the time the night shift hits odds are the sheaths will be out, but there has been a trend lately for later/longer cases where the sheaths are still present. So not only do we pull sheaths, we manage the the groin sites. Same as days. We still get admits and may have to deal with their issues inthe middle of the night, so you are still learning.

Like the above poster mentioned, you learn how to be self-sufficient and use the resources you have available to you. Sure, the docs aren't in house (sometimes), but there is always someone on call. I firmly believe that working nights makes you become a little more independent, but that's just me. The other nice thing is that if you have a patient with a odd or new medical problem, you have the opportunity to look it up and learn about it.

We had a colleague from nights go to days, and she said it was hard for the first week or so, but she got into the rhythm. But she did note that the missing shift differential did make an impact.

Cheers,

Tom

dedicated night shift-er

[fil149]

Thanks for the replies. It definetely helps to hear that night shift can be a good learning experience for a first year nurse such as myself. I must admit the money is tempting, but ultimately its the learning experience that means the most to me. If that can be achieved on night shift that will be great. Looking forward to Monday when I do my first night shift. Any suggestions on sleep pattern. What time you go to bed? How long do you sleep? Thanks again for the replies. What unit do you both work on? Im on a telemetry floor.