Night Nurses-Pts think we sleep?

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Dec 23, 2004

At our facility 11-7 doesn't get shift differential, either. Mgmt's rationale is that we have less to do at night and the residents are asleep.

What an enormous load of you-know-what! You can tell someone never worked a night shift.

Mulan · Dec 23, 2004

I have always bowed down to all night nurses. They work inhuman hours and have very little back-up on their shift. Many times they are the only nurse on-duty. They are often percieved has having nothing to do, so are assigned all the busy work, such as, QA, stocking, copying of MARS, etc.
As a side note: There are a few bad apples that make the rest of the hard working night nurses look bad. One night I walked into an empty patient's room to find my co-worker playing poker with the security staff.
I have also found nurses sleeping in empty patient rooms, on the floor in the manager's office, and on the sofa in the nurse's lounge. I worked with a nurse that walked around with a blanket around her all shift because she was cold. She actually did look like she had just gotten out of bed. I told her to buy a sweater. One time I walked in on a sleeping nurse and scared the crap out of her. She leaped-up out of a dead sleep, wrenched her back, and filed a work comp claim.

What did she say she was doing in that work comp claim she filed? LOL

Aneroo, LPN · Dec 23, 2004

3-11 is my natural time. CANNOT do 7am, unless it's when I am leaving! Our clinical time is usually 0645-1445...I jumped at the chance to do 1400-2200! I've always been more of a night person. I even did my labor and delivery rotation from 2300-0700. I saw the most out of all the students :) I'm ok on nights until around 0500, and then I get tired, unless it's busy. When I worked as an EMT for a transport company, we slept. We had air beds, couches... Even as an EMT for the county, we slept with pants in floor, ready to go. Our boots zipped up so we could go quicker. It's amazing how it takes me at least an hour to function at home, but I could be dressed and awake in the back of a moving ambulance getting an IV ready in less than 5 minutes. At the LTC place I used to work at, I don't remember any patients ever being sorry for waking me, but we were good about checking them before they called out. I didn't work many nights there (I was only 16/17...shouldnt have worked any nights with labor laws...OOPS!). -Andrea

Aneroo, LPN · Dec 23, 2004

Also, can't you lose your license for sleeping on the job? Isn't that considered negligence (spelling?) or abandonment? -Andrea

Mystery5 · Dec 23, 2004

Also, can't you lose your license for sleeping on the job? Isn't that considered negligence (spelling?) or abandonment? -Andrea

It's ok if someone is covering your pts. Why is it any different than going to the cafeteria for lunch???

dosamigos76, RN · Dec 23, 2004

We get $3 an hour after 1900 and an additional $3 on weekends (am or pm). I agree, we are always hopping, with MARS, QC's, extra paperwork, bedpans, and meds on our surgical floor. Some on days gripe that nights don't work as hard, but I just ignore that attitude. We ALL work hard on each shift, everyone misses something once in a while. Teamwork is the key, regardless of shift. I do think that night people are a tad different, more laid-back maybe, I don't know. Before nursing, I preferred nights...but I'm odd anyway.

Cheryl

Mystery5 · Dec 23, 2004

Yes, night people are awesome. We aren't so conformist. Not too many brownnosers amongst us. :rolleyes:

Aneroo, LPN · Dec 23, 2004

It's ok if someone is covering your pts. Why is it any different than going to the cafeteria for lunch???

I'd be ok with covering someone to go eat lunch. But if a co-worker came up to me asking if I'd cover their patients so they could go sleep...heck no! Then again, I don't think there would be much time. I just recall an instructor telling us that, wasn't sure if it was myth or truth. -Andrea

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Dec 23, 2004

Working nnights really send my body into a tizzy so I only do the one night a month I am required to - BUT, I admit it is very nice to work without management around.

snowfreeze, BSN, RN · Dec 23, 2004

As a supervisor who works all 3 shifts....Days have the most hectic schedule with therapies and tests and the patients being evaluated by everyone they are referred to. Daylight also has the most supervision so just doing your job and leaving the questions, dilemmas to the department responsible is the first option. Daylight also knows which department takes care of what because that department person is most likely to be in the unit taking up one of the few chairs when the nurse is ready to chart.

Evenings is usually a newer to nursing staff in general. The working families visit and complain more on this shift than the 2 others. They become the best 'defusers' and and leave messages for the proper department after they page the hell out of the supervisor to find out which department is responsible for the problem.

Night shift is the content, responsible ones. They show up without complaint, year after year. Do all the paperwork, restocking, cleaning of pumps, poles, wheelchairs etc. On many units they answer call lights as often as all other shifts. But no visitors for most patients and the management is asleep so they can just "do their job" without the politics.

The best place to work is a well oiled machine with the best staff for each shift.

ICUnowOHN · Dec 23, 2004

I used to work nights (12's) and did 5 in a row. We had 1/3 less staff assigned, before supervision pulled some them to float, so we regularly ended up each having 10-12 pts per RN, and we were very lucky if we got 2 LPNs usually we had 1, and 2 CNAs. This was a post open heart stepdown unit, with 32 beds. We also took ER admits for arrhythmias, chest pain, pre-op hearts and post cath lab pts.

This was like 8 or 9 years ago, and I hope they have better staffing now. We also did the MAR's and any other job days didn't want to do. We got shift diff.

I would take any float request to any ICU, and sometimes I'd end up taking the float to med/surg, ortho, neuro stepdown. I got loads of very good experiences doing that. I even used to get calls at home on my day off to come and cover an ICU nurse if they were short.

SLEEP ?? I felt like I did a good job if I got everything charted before it was time to go do report to days. Funny how I would have to give report to 2 or 3 day shifters. The only way we got to eat lunch was because we were truly a team. If one of us had a pt going bad, the rest of us would step up and take care of the rest of that nurse's pts, and do everything we could to help with the pt that was going down the tubes.

I worked some day shifts, and there was nothing like a team on days.

Mulan · Dec 23, 2004

As a supervisor who works all 3 shifts....Days have the most hectic schedule with therapies and tests and the patients being evaluated by everyone they are referred to. Daylight also has the most supervision so just doing your job and leaving the questions, dilemmas to the department responsible is the first option. Daylight also knows which department takes care of what because that department person is most likely to be in the unit taking up one of the few chairs when the nurse is ready to chart.
Evenings is usually a newer to nursing staff in general. The working families visit and complain more on this shift than the 2 others. They become the best 'defusers' and and leave messages for the proper department after they page the hell out of the supervisor to find out which department is responsible for the problem.
Night shift is the content, responsible ones. They show up without complaint, year after year. Do all the paperwork, restocking, cleaning of pumps, poles, wheelchairs etc. On many units they answer call lights as often as all other shifts. But no visitors for most patients and the management is asleep so they can just "do their job" without the politics.
The best place to work is a well oiled machine with the best staff for each shift.

Please clarify: "Evenings is usually a newer to nursing staff in general." Maybe I'm just not reading it right but I have no idea what you are saying here. Thanks.:)