Why does there have to be conflict between day and night shifts? Nursing is not a competition. Shift change should not be a battle of wills.
The night shift nurses tend to want to find everything day shift has done wrong during the day and point it out in shift change. Now why are they are able to do this? Oh, it is because they have all that free time at night when there is nothing else to do except play “Let’s see what that day shift nurse forgot to do?” Well, you are probably thinking I am just a bitter day shift nurse…well it is true I do work the day shift. I have however worked many night shifts in my career so far, all for extra money while continuing to do my regular full day shift schedule. I do have some idea what the night shift is all about.
From my experience, night shift is mostly about watching over sleeping patients until the morning, hoping all the while nothing too exciting happens. Now, I know not all patients sleep….this is never truer than in the ICU. I am not saying there is never any work to do on the night shift; there are occasions where patients crash and doctors have to be paged and procedures done. This is not a routine occurrence though, not like on days anyway.
I think all night shift nurses should have to spend a day or two working during the waking hours. This would likely make them see how much different it is to work when all the doctors round and all the orders are written, and the majority of procedures are done. Day shifts are rarely quiet or without excitement of some sort. Most visitors come during the day, we serve all the meals, and most importantly we have to see management more often…which just isn’t pleasant most of the time.
Having said all of that, I wouldn’t work nights for any length of time for all the shift differential in the world because I feel it is just not natural to stay up all night and sleep during the day then try to turn it around when you have a couple days off. Your body is just not made to work that way.
Why can’t we just all get along? Oh, because some of us work so very hard during the day feeding patients, dealing with visitors, doctors, management, and trying to make sure we do everything just right so that the night shift can’t find anything wrong that we will hear in report the next day….
I dont understand why there has to be permanent day & night staff. Why cant it be 4days on 4days off like other shift patterns; or 5 on 3 off or something, cycling in weekly or two weekly chunks. Rival crews or shifts will always rib their opposite number, whatever job it is. Nurses do far too long a shift anyhow & the pay is lousy. There would be more good qualified nurses to lighten the load, if the pay & the shifts were more reasonable. Junior doctors also suffer in the same way. There is plenty of well educated smart people who are out of work & could easily fill these gaps, with the right training & encouragement. Is it a way of running the health service down for some dark purpose, if feel.
Well done all our brave & caring nursing staff & thankyou for all the hard work you do
Well thank you Jean for your response. I realize we will always have rivalry, especially in a predominantly female occupation such as nursing…not trying to put my sex down, but we can be a bit catty at times. Hospital nursing is a round the clock job and there is just no way to split up the work without having shift work. Oh well…as long as the patients dont suffer our wrath I suppose a little conflict isnt that bad
Why can’t we all get along? Maybe you didn’t mean to just write a post complaining about night nurses, but it sure sounds that way, and right away that attitude puts me on the defensive as a night nurse and looks like a pretty good answer to your question. I work my butt off at night. So do my colleagues. Just because the night staff you work with nitpicks you, please don’t vilify all of us. The shifts get along fine at my hospital and help each other out. We understand that each shift has its own challenges and realize that we each have our expertise. It’s your blog, and you can say what you want, but I am offended by your post and hope you will reconsider your opinion, which seems to be based on one facility. Night nurses in many other facilities work our butts off with more patients and fewer resources than days, and we don’t often have time to sit around with our feet up, at least not at my hospital—and therefore I’m guessing not everywhere.
Not Nurse Ratched, I wrote this post on the basis of my own experience as a nurse. And I have done night shift work as well and just could not handle the toll it took on me physically and mentally. I was just not able to handle the staying up all night, so I do commend those of you who are able to do this. I honestly meant no offense to all of you night shifters. I realize that not all hospitals are the same and that yes in some facilities people do actually get along…this was just from my experience. I am glad you and your fellow coworkers respect each other and work together well.
I have to admit those times I did work night shift I was terrified to call physicians because I did not want them to be mad at me for waking them up! Believe me, I do know that there are pros and cons to both shifts and different responsibilities that make each one trying.
The finger pointing has got to stop. The last time I checked nursing is a 24-hour job regardless of your shift. Walking in each others shoes helps to lessen the conflict, but it all boils down to empathy and the realization of how busy EVERYONE is and can be.
We all hate getting dumped on, and it never has anything to do with the ’shift’. it’s just the day. Period.
IMHO
Sean, consider the pointed finger officially withdrawn!
I hope your night situation gets better. Yes, there are advantages and disadvantages to each shift, but it really sucks when nurses won’t do their jobs , barring no emergencies, and leave things for the next shift.
It doesn’t matter what shift it is (and I work two of three on a regular basis), I do my work and try to leave the least amount possible for the next shift. Period.
If I can help them, I help them and if they can help me, I certainly hope they will. I applaud the night people. My body just cannot handle nights. I had to orient on nights, and I wish I could do them, but I just cannot sleep during the day…and that makes for a very bad night nurse.
I agree with Sean. This constant bitching, back-biting and harping on differences is what can make this a very exasperating career field, at times. I know that there are no 100% solutions, but I think there is a reason why a lot of hospitals have a day/night rotation, and not just straight nights. ( I have worked both-I HATED the day night rotation…it just pounded the crap out me) Each shift has it’s down sides. On days, you have to deal with two meals, working your cares around appointments and therapies, to say nothing of having all of the managerial people and multiple doctor’s milling around. If you work straight nights, you give up regular sex with your partner(We’e adults here, I can be blunt), you are in a constant state of sleep deprivation, you have more patients to take care of, less support if anything hits the fan, the assumption by other staff members that you will have all kinds of spare time to handle “special” projects. I choose to work evenings because I am not a morning person, my kids are now 22 and 18, so I don’t have to be around in the evening. I don’t know, in the final analysis, a little empathy goes a long way-we’ve all been there.