I'll graduate from nursing school next May (2005), and I've been hearing some disturbing rumors about a lot of the hospitals in my city. Apparently if you're a new grad, you pretty much automatically get put on the night shift. Is this true where you live too? Is it a given, or is there hope of finding a hospital nursing job with daytime hours?
This really has me worried. Not everyone can handle working night shifts, with a schedule opposite of your spouse and the stress of trying to adjust your whole sleeping schedule. When I went into nursing I was looking forward to a good starting bonus and a good salary, but now I'm worried I'll have to forfeit that because I'm not willing to work the night shift.
Can anyone reassure me??
(P.S.: No offense to anyone who does work night shift and likes it. I know some people do, but I also know that I'm not one of them.)
No nurse would work a true "night shift" here in our little rural community so we do 3 - 3 here so each shift works part of the night shift. I work from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. Getting up at 1:45 a.m. is hard but being home when my kids get home from school is good. I only work part-time now and will never go back to full time.
Everywhere is different. Check out surgical centers. Monday through Friday, usually 8-5 and NO weekend and NO holidays. I have a friend who has young children and works two days a week at a surgical center. It fits her schedule right now with kids.
Specializes in CCU (Coronary Care); Clinical Research.
Our hosptial staffs from 7 to 7. There is the occassional evening shifter from 3-11. In the hospital that I work in...I would say that 85% of the new hire/new grads work the night shift. When I graduated, I think that only two of the people that I graduated with got the day shift...we did do an orientation for about 2 months on days though before we went to nights. Our day shift positions are posted online and in the hospital but the position would always go to a night-shifter that worked in the unit before anyone else...it two or more night shifters apply, then it is by senority.
I'd say that a new nurse can get a day position but it will be harder to find that a night position.
Specializes in OB Labor & Delivery/PP/Nursery/Hospice.
Our hospital is small and so is our area of the world, but there are usually options open to work a rotating shift of 12 hour day shifts and then 8 hour 3-11.
There are rarely any 7-3 shifts open. And if you have a unit that you REALLY want to work in, you take what you can get.
Personally, I would rather work nights forever in my OB dept. than take a day job in another. It's a personal choice and there are others who would do just the opposite.
Good luck with your job no matter what shift you are on!
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
not everywhere. but most places, you will find that the openings are for NOC. It depends on where you go and how picky you are about speciality. If you want something like OB, you can almost bet you will work nightshift first off. It's pretty much the norm. But not a given everyplace. Good luck to you. You COULD always go perdiem and pick your shifts/days you work. Keep THAT in mind.
The hospitals I've seen that have rotating shifts rotate every two weeks. That is cruel and unusual in my opinion
Yes there is nothing worse than "rotating shifts." I like nights the best. I would never agree to do "rotating shifts." It would kill me for sure. It is definately cruel and unusual punishment.
It always seems we have the most openings on evenings here.
I would not ever want to rotate every two weeks...ewwww!
I'm not surprised about the openings on evenings. Who wants to be there when the place is crawling with family members, friends, neighbors, and everyone else that wants to come and visit after they get off from their day jobs so they can take out their day's frustrations on the nursing staff?
When I was a new grad it was required all nurses rotate equally days alternating either pm's or nights. 2 weeks of each in a month. We could choose pm's or nights.
In some ways this was good...less turf wars between the shifts. It was hard to switch back and forth from nights to days especially those of us with young kids but we managed, because it was a requirement.
I'm one of those strange nurses that actually prefers nights...12 hr shifts. :)
Our hospital is unionized and the contract pretty much dictates how shifts get filled. If 4 people apply for a position the person with senority in the department gets the position. Then from outside the department then people who apply from outside the institution. Most of the shifts are day/night or day/evening rotating. ER it was 4 out of every 8 weeks- self scheduled but more often than not you only did 3 weeks on the off shift. We rotated because the contract called for bonuses to be paid for straight nights and staight evenings. Butt it also calls for a certain number of staight day shifts as well. This ends up creating a like number of off staight shifts as well.
Don't give up hope however as with any place there are people who prefer straight nights to rotating and one could trade off their nights and vice versa.
Our hospital has ~3000 nurses so there is bound to be open day shifts and generally there is, one just needs to get in to the unit they want then wait, ER here it generally is about the 6-9 month range.
Jailhouse RN
156 Posts
No. I got days right off.