Wow. I am now officially a night shift nurse and can't believe that my body will ever get used to it. I think I'm going to like it. The entire atmosphere is completely different and everyone is more relaxed. It's pretty weird to eat lunch at 2 am and go to sleep at 8 in the morning. You sorta forget that the world is sleeping while you're saving lives ;)
I think I made the right choice as far as units go. The staff where I work is really fun and young. Last night 6 of 7 nurses working were between 22-27. That's a little scary but fortunately we have some awesome Charge Nurses to help us new-bees along.
I've got to accept that I'm going to make mistakes though. That's really hard for the perfectionist in me. I think every week I do at least one really stupid thing. Fortunately none of them have injured my patients in anyway. But it's hard to accept that your screw ups can have some pretty significant impacts on another person's life. It makes you want to double and triple check everything you do. I wish there was time for that.
I called a MD in the middle of the night for the first time, and despite the fact that it took three times for him to call me back, it wasn't nearly as bad as people say it can be. I guess that's something else I have to look forward to. But all in all, I know this is right where I should be and something about getting up as the sun goes down makes you feel like you're a part of some adventure.
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2 comments:
Now THAT'S a post title.
I used to work the night shift, too! My lunch was also at 2 AM.
But I worked the night shift at Wal*Mart.
Every night at four, we would all go out into the parking lot to collect the shopping carts. It was so strange walking out from the fluorescence into the dark of early morning, steam rolling off the top of the building from the air conditioning.
It's like you're living in a different world sometimes, really. I loved it.
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