Students: Prefer morning or evening clinicals?

[ashandjune]

--I'm wondering what clinical shift students prefer more, and why??

I personally think morning shift would be better because i want to get it out of the way and have the rest of the day to myself. But I get to chose last because i'm turning in my paperwork late. I'm hoping there will still be space left for the morning shift!

morning shift: 6AM - 2:30PM:yawn:

evening shift: 2PM -10:00PM:zzzzz

--what are the pros and cons of each?

--which would you chose, andy WHY!!?

[avahnel, ASN, RN]

Are you a morning person, or an evening person? It really is up to you!!! I chose morning, because it works better for me for childcare, but if I had my choice I would have chosen evenings!!! If you have no constraints, then go to clinicals when you are most alert, and ready to learn. Try this test and see what it says!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/crt/

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Mornings

Pro: you get it over with and still have a lot of your day left; your patient will be awake for a lot of it; it's a busier time with lots going on; more things such as surgeries, procedures, etc., are scheduled for daytime so you may be able to catch them; you yourself are AOx3 during it

Con: having to head out of the house before dawn; you'll have to do more patient grunt work such as bathing, bed changes, etc (at least that's what our NS expects from us: when we're assigned a patient, we can't fob that stuff off on the CNAs to do for us--we're expected to do it. I know as a nurse we're ultimately responsible, so no flames--I'm just including this to represent all sides of the argument).

Evenings

Pros: less patient grunt work (unless it's needed), so you can focus more on developing your assessment/nursing skills; generally a calmer atmosphere than the mornings for patients and staff so you may get to do more procedures; patients will probably fall asleep near the end of the shift so you'll have some downtime, unless they have Sundowner's--then it's all go.

Cons: less surgeries/procedures to try to get in and watch; calmer atmosphere may also equate to "dull night" some times; you're more likely to be tired as the evening draws on since you probably had a morning full of studying/errands/stuff before you got here; having to head home late at night.

Of course, it also depends on whether you're a morning or evening person, how it works for childcare, etc. I prefer nights as I'm a night owl, but childcare issues force me towards days...though I will admit it's nice to be done at 1pm and still have a day to enjoy :)

[Aneroo, LPN]

I loved the evening shift.

There was less mgt. there, the doctors usually didn't run away with your chart for two hours for rounds, the patients were on the floor instead of off the floor for procedure. Just much more laid back than day shift!

ETA- And I got to sleep in (WOOT) and had most of the day to finish my paperwork, instead of staying up late and finishing it at night and then having to get up early.