Why so many 3-11 jobs at nursing homes?

[northmississippi]

Every nursing home I've talk to seems to always have a 3-11 position open, is this considered the harder shift or something?

[mrsboots87]

I not a nurse yet, but am a CNA at a LTC facility. From what I've seen, the morning shift seems to be busier for the nurses then the evening shift. Just about everyone has morning and lunch meds, but those who have evening meds have less. Also, many of the dressing changes and various treatments seem to be scheduled in the AM. May be different at your facility, but just how it is at mine. Also, morning shift is more popular among a lot of nurses so they can get there 8 in and still have the rest of the day off. So it may just be that the more senior nurses have taken all the day shift positions so only evening shift is left open right now.

[Coldfusion71]

Typically from what I see 3-11 nurses have to not only have a normal patient load they are also responsible for doing admissions. That creates a heavy burden for the nurses and often leads to high turnover.

[tealover88]

3-11 also makes personal life difficult since most people are working in the morning til the evening, so u never got to see your family or friends unless it was ur weekend off. and yes, the majority of admissions come mid-afternoon and the early evening. I worked 3-11 for 10 months and can safely say the majority of admissions were on the 3-11 shift, but most discharges were 7-3. also on my unit most txs that a patient came in with ended up on 3-11. a very stressful shift on my unit.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

I worked in the rehab area of a SNF for a few years; I worked mostly 7-3, but would pick up 3-11. I really preferred 3-11, but then you're working opposite most of society.

Where I worked, most admissions came between 1300 and 1700. Nearly all discharges happened on days. Now with admits, we had a behemoth stack of paperwork, but in the first few hours of PM shift when they usually came, it wasn't as busy as day shift either. Day shift was crazy, with a.m. med pass, treatments, discharges (teaching, plus the nurse had to call Rxs into the pt's pharmacy.) On the weekends too, the nurses acted as admission coordinators. So hospital SWs would call about someone needing a TCU bed, fax us their hospital record, and in between everything else we had to do, look at the record and decide if the admission was a yea or nay. Oh and of course, if the SW didn't hear back in 20 min, we'd get a call asking where we were with the decision. I had to tell more than one SW that "this is the bedside RN. No, I have not had two seconds to even look at the record."

For me, 3-11 was a nice break.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

used to hate those hours in hospital as many direct admits. There must be some task, such as getting people hs meds and then to bed, that make that shift not desirable in LTC

[Tina, RN]

Yikes. IMO, 3-11 is a nightmare!

I only did it per diem, but at a hospital not a snf. Lots of admissions. Lots of patients that are getting very annoyed that their discharge is taking too long. Plus, if you have school aged kids, you can forget about seeing them... Not a fan of this shift!

[RNperdiem, RN]

This was always the hardest shift to staff when I started out.

Imaging eating most of your dinners in the cafeteria or out of a lunchbox instead of sitting down for a family dinner. If you are married with children, you probably won't see them much on the days you work-which will be 5 days a week instead of 3 if you work 12 hour shifts. There are whole threads about how much people prefer the 3 12 hour schedule.

The time off you get isn't very usable. You get home around midnight, have to sleep late and the scraps of time you do have in the morning have to be fitted in before work. When I worked this shift I was always looking at my watch counting down and wondering if I had enough time to do the errands I needed. I would also have to ration my energy because my working day was going to start soon.

Evenings always got the admissions. Days would empty the beds and evenings would fill them.

Evenings had to deal with the "sundowning" patients. My experience convinces me that sundowning can start as early as 6pm or as as late as 11pm.

Unless there are visiting hours, evenings are a popular time for visitors. Morning shift often has a long visitor-free period early in the morning to assess and start meds, but not evenings.

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

I disliked the 3 to 11pm shift because:

1. Too many family members visited during those hours. Their questions and unrealistic demands sucked up the time I needed to accomplish other tasks.

2. Too many admissions rolled in during those hours. In addition to the admissions, I had to deal with family complaints and two medication passes.

3. Per state law, a licensed nurse needed to be in the dining room for the residents' dinnertime in case someone choked or aspirated. I'm now having to pass meal trays and wipe faces in addition to the 5:00pm medication pass that is due.

4. The 3 to 11pm shift sucked up my personal time. It took up part of my day, all of my evening and a sizable chunk of my night.

[Nibbles1]

3-11 or 2-10 was the worst effing shifts. I had admits, be on dinner duty, had 26 PEG feedings. The doctors seemed to always call during dinner time. And then people who could ambulate, would fall. I truly dislike these shifts.

[mmc51264, BSN, MSN, RN]

That's what I worked when I work LTC rehab. I loved that shift. We had no admits. My only issue was that I had an hour drive each way; 5 days a week. I never got to eat with my kids. I like the 3 12s I work now better.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

A lot of people dislike 1500-2300--in many settings and not just LTC/SNF--because the schedule really interferes with home & social lives.