What's with all this Swing Shifts?

[Bluebolt]

I've noticed an odd trend lately of positions insisting the RN be willing to rotate days and nights during the assignment. Surely they understand how taxing on your body this kind of schedule can be. I personally would be a dangerous ICU zombie rotating back and forth and never fully adjusting my circadian rhythm. What's even more insulting is that these positions are not offering extra premium pay for this taxing service required by the nurses body. The pay is the same as any other positions! I just recently turned down an offer in Hawaii (the pay was low as expected) but the fact that everyone has to rotate days and nights for fairly low pay was a deal breaker.

Has anyone else noticed this trend and does it bother anyone else? I'm personally a very much "days" person who functions terribly on nights. I'm curious if anyone has worked this kind of schedule and did well with it. Also if you did well with it, are you a night person, maybe chug red bulls, snort some cocaine, etc?

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

I'm naturally a night person (case in point, I am typing this on vacation and very much awake at 1am lol) ... and the idea of swing shift unnerves me. I haven't done days on a floor since I was a student in clinicals. I hated the idea of being on the unit first thing in the morning 7am --- love it as I leave though :) ... I did my capstone days on the same unit I currently work on, so because of that there was no need for me to orient on days when I was hired on as an RN. There are a few hospitals I am considering for travel that I hear are requiring swing shifts, nervous about it. But I am willing to bite that bullet in exchange for working where I wanna work. So much traffic and more responsibilities during days (fingersticks AC, transports, discharges, etc.) that I am not used to, I might be overwhelmed. I will likely opt to do my first assignment on a nights only basis before I venture on an assignment that swings.

Sent from my iPad using allnurses

[wanderlust99]

Some hospitals swing their permanent staff so I can understand travelers having to do it too. My last job I switched shifts and found it pretty difficult. Not the job but getting to know a whole new group of people after being on nights for a month.

I too am having trouble finding a straight days Icu job right now. That isn't in a float pool. I may have to just cave and take a nights job.

Fingers crossed this changes soon!