Tomorrow is my last day shift. I start my nocturnal habits on Sunday night. Before I leave the light of day, I'm going to tell you how a normal shift (or as close to normal as possible) looks like. I did a post similar to this while I was at Mayo, but I'm going to do it again now. Then, after I get used to night shift, I'll do it again and compare the ways two different shifts work.
5:30am- The despicable alarm tune goes off and Caroline lunges for her phone to stop the noise.
5:45- eat breakfast, read Bible, and make hot drink
6:06-6:08- head out the door
6:29- arrive on unit
6:30- get assignment (usually 4 patients), fill pockets with nursing goodies, look up patient information
7:00- start getting report from night shift nurses, meet patients
7:30-8:15ish- do initial vital signs and assessments
8:15ish-start giving morning medications
9:00ish- if everything is going smoothly, I can start charting
9:30ish- if everything is going smoothly, I can work on patient's plan of care and review notes.
And that's where the 'normal' ends.
At eleven, I do assessments and charting again.
At noon, I try to eat lunch.
At three, I do assessments and charting again.
The things that actually take up my time are so random and scattered. Sometimes I feel like there's no way I can handle everything at once. Other times, I'm sitting at the desk with hardly anything going on.
Here are some of the things that make me so busy.
-Discharging patients, doing their education, printing out information, taking out IVs, charting the discharge, making sure they have their ride, if they're going to a nursing home or rehab then I have to call and give report.
-Admitting patients, doing an initial assessment, asking a million questions, making sure we have the right medication list, calling the doctor for orders and putting them in, charting everything for them. Also, most of the patients are admitted at the most inconvenient times- like during lunch, right before shift change, or right when I have to give every other patient their timed medications.
-Giving medications throughout the day. The other day, I only had to give medications at 9:00am, 2:00pm, and 5:00pm. It was so simple and easy, but that is not normal.
-Answering call lights. This alone could be a full time job.
-Getting people to the bathroom, on the bedpan, or getting them a cup of water.
-Changing dressings for wounds
-Answering phone calls from family members
-Paging doctors with critical results and taking orders
-Getting patients ready to transfer to or from a test
-Talking to patients and their families
-Cutting up food for a patient who has trouble swallowing
-Helping another nurse who is overwhelmed
-Lifting patients up in bed who can't lift themselves
-Untangling the million cords that are attached to patients
-Trying to start an IV or replacing electrodes
-Changing gowns or bedding when it gets soiled
-A hundred other little things that I can't even think of right now. I promise you that I'm earning my keep. I get so busy that I often forget to drink water or go to the bathroom.
I had a patient the other day. She had to go to the bathroom quite frequently to say the least. About every hour, she would put on her call light. I would walk in and she would look at me and say, "Bedpan!" That was it.
The same day, I had a patient who told me that I was an angel (he obviously had dementia or something) and his sister gave me a hug at the end of the day.
I don't why I told those stories cause there wasn't really a point....
On a different note, last night I went to a concert with a friend. We went to the Metro on the north side of Chicago and saw Oh Honey, the Mowgli's, and American Authors. It was fantastic. Oh Honey is pretty much my all time favorite band and we were standing in the third row right in front of the stage. I made eye contact with the lead singer during the concert. Also, before the show, we were walking to get dinner and passed the other singer from Oh Honey. I recognized her, but I got stage fright and didn't even say hi. One of my biggest regrets. :(
Other than that, it was awesome!
Thank you for this!! I graduate from nursing school in about 4 months, and despite clocking over 500 hours in clinical settings, I still have a pretty foggy understanding of how a nurse's day really flows! I really appreciate how you laid your day out with examples of all the "little things" that us student nurses don't really get to see - admitting and discharging, talking to doctors, placing orders, and managing the needs of more than one patient. Every little bit helps :)
ReplyDelete