Difference between Night/Day Nurse

discuss the differences between Night Shift position & the Day Shift position as a Nurse with all the responsibilities, meds, MD orders, patient care and the inquisitive family members....lol I also throw in there a day shift experience that happend to me recently!!!
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[timbabcock]

Just another day nurse saying how they are SOOO busy and night staff is just relaxing doing nothing. Tired of this stereotype. Night staff busts ass and most patients don't sleep. Working night shift in a hospital is the most under appreciated position you will ever have.

[iowasenator]

Wait a minute!  I might be wrong but, I feel as if you're saying that nocs are a piece of cake compared to the day shift.  Perhaps my perception of your opinion is incorrect.  If so, I apologize.  I have worked the night shift for about 75% of my career as a Registered Nurse and you have a very typical "day shift" attitude toward our work at night!  From our point of view, it must be VERY VERY NICE to have about 1/4 to 1/2 the patient load we have on nights....and often the staffing disparity is even more pronounced than that (in day shifts favor, of course!)  It also really sticks in my craw when I hear from a 7am-7pmer, "Well, all they do is sleep."  Are you kidding me????  If they happen to be inadequately medicated for pain (which day shift OFTEN happens to "forget") and/or they have psych or dementia issues, the night shift is when these behaviors come into full flower!  Of course, the physician on call or the hospitalist LOVES to help the nurses on night shift out by writing for on a patient not on their list!  Day shift ALWAYS remembers to ask that patient's PCP for medication that is primarily used at night.  Its also lovely that if we are short-staffed, we don't have the clinical supervisor (or DON if in Long Term Care) right there to advocate for float (or agency) to be sent to bail us out!  Its also lovely that we are ALWAYS included in all the parties, awards, and holiday celebrations!  Too, when management needs to contact us with a question, they think NOTHING of calling us at 1pm!  Remember, our 1pm is JUST EXACTLY LIKE YOUR 1am!!!!  If we even DARED calling any of you day shifters at 1am with any simple routine call or question, we would be ripped apart and eaten alive!  We are CONSTANTLY short of CNA's on nights as well, which means that in addition to performing our nursing cares (just like YOU do), we are always put into the situation of needing to help the poor Aides that are there!  Now, I know that day shift RNs sometimes help out here and there but, NOT TO THE EXTENT that we do at night!  Also, as far as procedures go, patients just LOVE to be awakened at night for some sort of care that's been ordered (or day shift "forgot" or was just "too busy to do!")  Additionally, management thinks nothing of scheduling in-services or "mandatory meetings" right smack dab in the middle of the when a particular night RN has to come in at 7pm that same noc!  Oh, the extra paperwork is just LOVELY too! (setting up transport, paging lab, day shift staffing sheets, etc..etc...on and on...)  In LTC, there is also this wonderful little event called MEDICATION EXCHANGE that Nights, and ONLY Nights gets stuck with doing!  You know, I could go on and on about the hundreds of little things that we bear night after night but, I don't want to sound petty!  LOL  To top it all off, you rarely hear us complain about the laziness of the opposite shift whereas day shift just LOVES giving all of our shift LOTS of grief for this or for that.  I am really tired of it.  Besides, if the night shift is EASY, why aren't ALL these day-shifters clamoring to switch to nights????  I know, I know, it is because: 1) They have families, 2) Their body just CAN'T adjust to sleeping during the day, 3)  Or some other EXCUSE!  Believe me, night shift nurses are professionals who need to be excellent time managers, diagnosticians, rapidly adjust themselves to a whole variety of diverse and demanding circumstances!  Perhaps, it might be MORE in our interest to see the benefits of banding together rather than pointing out the "differences between days and nights" in such a way as to disparage those of us who are night owls and keep the home fires burning whilst everyone else in the world sleeps????  I have the deepest respect for any of my fellow nurses and I recognize that I wouldn't be a good fit for the day shift either.  But, that doesn't mean that I am ANY LESS of a clinician than someone who works when the sun is shinning outside!  Thank you.

[BASiegle]

He is totally right--night shift is much better.  I feel like I can actually provide good patient care at night.

[Simoneirie]

Good Video! The hospital where I worked night was just as crazy as days but just less hospital staff around. Dont forget the sun downer patients that wanna fight or go to the mall at 1am in the morning lol. One 70 year old lady call the police and we didn't know and they showed up. She then proudly announced she was having the president's baby and her water was about to break! She then proceeded to urinate on the floor...

[jaybars]

Maybe at your hospital that's how it is but night shift at my facility can be really busy! I rotate from night shift and day shift so I am familiar with the workload of both shifts. On night shift we get 7 patients with no CNAs. On day shift we get 5 patients with 4 CNAs. The unit that I work on is a medical/oncology floor as well so we give chemo quite a bit. Our chemo is mainly given at night as well. Some nights are so crazy that I often wonder why I got into this profession in the first place. During the night I am often hanging chemo on 3 patients, having Rituxan or Darzalex running on one patient and needing to take vital signs every 30 minutes until the infusion is complete (usually a 4-6 hour process), checking blood sugars every hour on the patient that's on an insulin drip which in most facilities is a PCU or ICU patient, dealing with the common sundowners trying to contact the night hospitalist who often likes to ignore your calls for some haldol, giving blood and platelet transfusions to my other post chemo patients that have a hgb of 5.4 and a PLT of 7 and trying to get all my charting done and put together a decent report so the oncoming day shift nurse doesn't think I'm a complete incompetent idiot who was nice enough to get most of the work done throughout the night so he/she can have a better day. I feel bad for my patients because some of my patients barely get to see me because I am so busy. At the end of the day, we are all BUSY. Day shift and night shift. BUT that is nursing and nursing is the profession that we chose and i absolutely LOVE IT!!

[timbabcock]

Keep in mind you have less staff at night for same patient population

[thomashart]

Just another Day Queen! Listen princess, the job is what you make it. If nurses want to sit and grow adipose tissue they can do it on any shift. In 18 years of Nursing, the busiest job I've ever had was at night in a small emergency room.

[royedwards]

I work Med/Surg as a travel nurse and I have worked both Day and Night shift and I can honestly say that I am just as busy as night. No time for play or taking it

[austin]

You want to be resourceful nurse, work the night shift. All of those doctors, cnas, support staff, etc that he mention during his day shift glorification rant....they are not there. Imagine the day shift without the resources.

[amesbams]

I work nights, but it is no where near as easy as you say. I work on a very busy cardiac unit that gives us 7 patients. Day shift gets 5 patients. Night shift also have no doctors in the hospital that we can call and the on call docs hardly answer the phone in the night. We have no EKG techs so we do ALL of our own EKG 's. All dressing changes are done on nights, meanwhile you can bet that at least one of the seven has dementia or sundowner. We are lucky if they sleep too. For whatever reason all our doctors give dilaudid q2, q3, or q4 for chest pain. Why? I have no clue. Those are only SOME of the things night shift deals with. I was also told one day by day shift that we do not deserve the differential that we get to work nights!

[nursevirgie]

As a prudent nurse your assessment and prioritizing makes a world of difference when many things go wrong at the same time.

[Katherinem]

I've been on a marathon watching all your videos! I love them and love seeing how passionate you are about nursing!

[NurseMendoza]

Thank you for watching my video my fellow nurses, student nurses and aspiring nurses. I hope that you keep up with the daily videos I post on the channel, subscribe, and share your learnings with those that need to hear it. Your comments are my oxygen and reason why I share all my nursing experiences, education and nursing tips, so please take a second and say ‘Hey’ 😉. 

Don't Forget to Follow NurseMendoza 

[murdabenne]

I work in a stepdown PCU unit in a Level 1 trauma hospital, and I've found what you said does NOT seem to match what I have seen. Start with the FSBG and insulin. Our hospital has finger sticks ac/hs/03, so we have to do sticks at about 10 and again around 0300. And we usually have drips going, from cardizem to cardene (on monitor with charted hourly vitals) and heparin, etc. Everyone on tele. Far more totals than med surg due to higher acuity. Then there are sundowners. Also we have some things that they have nights do that's days does not, like care plan review/change/updates. Also, we get the hard admissions - far more Emergency admits at night, plus the drunks and druggies and violence cases that are badly injured or with bad hearts that dont show up days but love to trash themselves at night and in up in the ED than up they come to us. Days you have patients off the floor a lot (like dialysis, procedures, etc) which can help you catch up a bit. And to top it off, we have higher ratio than days so we are carrying more patients, are much more thinly staffed (harder to get people to work nights), which means that your nursing buddy you can go to during the day is buried at night and cannot come help some of the time. Then there's also fewer techs, sometimes none at all because its hard to cover an absence with PRN at night. So nights are not the cake walk you paint them to be. Most importantly, the MDs are not there, just overworked hospitalists, so unlike days, we cannot just call a doc for some things - especially at 2:30 AM. We are much more on our own, have to make a lot more judgement calls, and have to operate farther out on the edge of our license. I've worked both, and they are equally difficult, just in different ways. IMHO you have to be a stronger nurse at night simply because you are on your own far more than during days.

[butterfly]

My Goodness you have described this 100%
I never thought I was going to be as busy as I am when I was in nursing school.
but I love it too!!!

[shellybabyth]

I hear you my fellow nurse, then you have to chart and the nurse mgr is like "why are you still here?"

[organicniki]

This all depends on your unit. Some units are insane at night, not to mention it's harder to reach docs and etc, so it's a lot more autonomy used. But good ol ER is busy no matter what time

[Gurlie]

Dang he made It seem as though night shift is easy... now I’ve done both shifts both have pros and cons. On both I’ve worked my ass off. I don’t believe one is easier than the other you just have to adjust and deal.

[medranofamilytx]

You gotta know your shit to work nights. I say this because, you work days, all you have to do is pick up the phone, or turn your chair around and there is a doctor there, ready to give an order. Nights, you need something at 0200?... you better damn well know what you are asking for and make sure you havent already tried something to fix the problem before you call. Non of this, "let me call the doctor to see if I can increase my O2 from 2 to 3 liters..." You will usually get an on call doc who knows nothing of the patient so you better have your stuff together at that point. Critical thinking skills are tested BIG on nights. Yeah, we have down time sometimes, but when shit hits the fan, you better have a great team working next to you because thats who youre gonna be bouncing stuff off back and forth to get these patients through the night. Im not talking about your heart caths or your abd pains, Im talking about your open hearts and your septic patients... your patients with 6+ gtts going, more monitors than you can fit and more tubing hanging off their necks, groins and whatever other place you can get a line into. You are the only one standing between your critically ill patient and the doctor, so once again, you better know your shit....

[karenhuntley]

Very positive, we need more nurses like you!!!