mirn

Hello...I am currently working 12 hour shifts 7pm to 0730 am. Although I love the time off, I personally feel that 12 hour shifts are unsafe... especially on nights. I think toward the end of the day, it is easy to be careless because of fatigue. And although I readily admit to being guilty of this occasionally, I do not think working 3 days in a row is safe on 12 hour shifts, again due to lack of sleep, concentration, or whatewver. I am so fatigued when I get home that I am brain-dead. I know that many nurses love their 12 hour shifts...I hate them and wish our hospital would reinstitute some 8 hour shifts. Another thing i dislike about them is that on night shift, half your days off are spent sleeping, so I never feel like I have had four days off.... My last complaint is continuity of care...True, the patient now has only 2 nurses a day instead of 3...however, with shorter stays and varying assignments, a patient seldom has the same nurse two days in a row on a Med-Surg unit. I think that the idea of 12 hour shifts fostering continuity of care is just that, an idea.

Hi, Worked for a home Hospice agency in Michigan until Feb. 1999. Was reimbursed 0.30 per mile and it was taxed. I was able to claim that at the end of the year. Also, my vehicle was a lease, so I was able to claim that too...luckily a friend pointed that out to me before tax time last year. What I basically found was that my paycheck with the mileage added on was like getting a regular ol' check (no mileage) without having taxes taken out. In other words, the mileage pay added in was about equal to my deductions from my check. Am I making sense? Hope this helps...

I must not have posted my response to Anji clearly enough. I never meant to imply that she should "suck it up" if she felt an assignment to be unsafe. I simply stated that in many areas this is the norm. And while I agree that nurses leaving a facility can be an effective message for administration, it is only a workable one if there is a place to go when you leave. In my community there is not. Some have to work where we can. So, since I do not feel that our staffing ratios are unsafe (the majority of the time!) I choose to stick it out and hope to make a change not only for my future, but for my patients, because at the end of a 13 hour shift, that is truly all that matters. Thanks! Mirn

Sorry to break it to you, but I have to agree with the last two posts. I am a fairly new ADN-RN grad who has LPN experience as well. And about every hospital in this nation is understaffed right now, it seems. The patients continually become more challenging, the staffing ratios decline, and it is soooo easy to get discouraged! However, you sound intelligent and dedicated. I am willing to bet that in a few months you will learn to acclimate. Organization and speed only come with experience...don't be too hard on yourself. Rely on your skills, education, and peers and the rest will come. And at our hospital the average orientation is 4 weeks...6 for ICU/CCU, ER, and OB/LDRP. This includes brand new grads! Best of luck.