r/justgalsbeingchicks • u/mindyour š¤definitely not a botš¤ • 23d ago
Restricted to Gals and Pals Ranking her 12-hour shift videos.
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u/Chelular07 23d ago
She saw some shit on that peds psych ward
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u/MalloryArcher64 23d ago
Was coming to say, that one actually made me jump a little, like my heart clenched kinda. Scary
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u/risciss93 23d ago
I'm only a cleaner in the hospital for 8 hours a day I've seen some shit, I could not imagine being a nurse sometimes. I've had to pull patients off nurses before and they just somehow go about their day? It's crazy.
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u/stella-is-a-flower 23d ago edited 23d ago
you're not "only" a cleaner, you're doing a really important job that helps keep the the entire hospital running
ETA: stop awarding this post and start awarding the actual hospital cleaner doing the work who I'm replying to! I haven't worked in healthcare in five years lmao
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u/usedtheglueonpurpose 23d ago
Agreed! I so appreciate the cleaning staff. Your job makes such a huge difference to patients and other staff. It honestly is such a huge part of hospital care and really shows the hospital in a better light when EVS is well-staffed and able to do a thorough job.
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u/iamacraftyhooker 23d ago
Agreed. When I was in (adult) psych the cleaning staff were some of the only people that had a moment to engage in normal human interaction. Just a quick moment of kind small talk, treating me like a real person instead of just another patient where talking to me is their job and I'm a burden in their busy schedule.
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u/Robovzee 23d ago
I did 25 years hospital pharmacy. Don't put yourself down. No one can do what they do until you do your part. I'd call that pretty damn important. You do this daily, with those who are supposed to be on your team making it difficult, and treating you like crap. Hold your head up, at least one person recognizes your importance, even if your paycheck doesn't reflect it.
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u/Nat20Life 23d ago
We love our EVS!! You help us keep the hoapital running! Without you, we would get abslutely nowhere. You're not only a cleaner, you are a truly important and valued member of the team ššš
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u/deaddollash 23d ago edited 21d ago
This is so cute from an EVS manager, love to see the love for the sector š«¶š»
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u/Digital-Divide 23d ago
Spend more time in hospitals than I care too.
Every single time. The cleaning person has been amazing. You know the good snack machines, best places to relax and way more polite than some of the doctors.
So, thanks for everything.
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u/hypergonomic 23d ago
When my mama was fighting her losing battle with cancer, she would ALWAYS talk to environmental services (cleaners) and thank them for basically carrying the hospital on their backs. Y'all run that joint as much as nurses and techs, maybe more. Can't imagine the hospital holding employees or making as much bank if it wasn't sanitary. š
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u/VictoriousTree 22d ago
The whole place wouldnāt run without cleaners. Your jobs is important and very few people are willing to clean in a hospital. Youāre awesome.
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u/FortuneFavrsTheGrave 23d ago
As someone whose spouse worked in psych, I knew Peds Psych was going to be bad.
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u/user_name_taken- 23d ago
Honestly, any medical unit that involves kids is rough. I actually wanted to be a nurse and I loved kids so my natural inclination at 14 was to be a nurse with children. Then my brother got hit by a car and was med flighted to All Childrens Hospital. He was there for about 2.5 weeks while my family stayed at the Ronald Mcdonald house (which is genuinely such an amazing organization). I very quickly changed my mind after that. It was so hard, and I was just a visitor, although I did end up spending a lot of time with one young mom and her 2 yr old son. He had a serious heart condition and his prognosis wasn't great. That really hurt. And 20 plus years later I still think about that little boy. I still think about the 4-year-old little girl who was next to my brother in the Intensive Care unit. She was all alone for days at a time.
When my best friend was becoming an RN and she had to do her nursing rotations she said the pediatric rotation was the worst. She said she would leave for the day and sit in her car and cry before she drove home. After that week she said she would never go into peds.
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u/torenvalk 21d ago
My father did time with pediatrics during his med school days. He was pretty convinced that was where he wanted to specialize. That time made him switch to adult oncology and he never went back to peds.
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u/diabolikal__ 23d ago
God it sounds like something that shouldnāt be a thing. I hate thinking that some kids may need that.
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u/hic_sunt_leones_ 23d ago
Pediatric/adolescent psych units are the reason I'm able to write this comment.
I had very real plans not to see my 18th birthday.
Sucks that they're needed, but thank goodness they exist.
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u/diabolikal__ 23d ago
So glad that you are here!! I didnāt mean to say that they shouldnāt exist, so sorry if it came out that way!!! I am incredibly grateful that they help and save kids.
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u/hic_sunt_leones_ 23d ago
Oh no, you're totally fine! I didn't think you meant anything negative by your comment, I just wanted to add a bit from a former child who experienced needing to utilize those resources.
The people who work those jobs are saints, and I am incredibly grateful to them.
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u/LostMy8yrAcct 23d ago
A peds psych ward helped save my teenage sonās life once. I will forever be grateful for everyone who worked that ward. In the video, she looks like sheās been crying after that shift. š
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u/iamacraftyhooker 23d ago
One of the worst parts of peds psych is knowing most of the kids don't have great home lives. They have so much potential to be helped, but are being failed by the adults in their lives.
Peds inpatient psych is basically reserved for kids who are incredibly violent and are posing a threat to their others in the home, or that their support system can't be trusted to keep them safe. They tend to stay in outpatient for kids with competent adults in their lives.
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u/SplitGlass7878 23d ago
Sucks that it's needed, great that it's a thing.
I know multiple people who wouldn't be here now without them. Yes, they can be horrible and incredibly abusive and severe oversight is desperately needed. But they can and often do literally save lives.Ā
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u/TK_Punch_ 23d ago
Iāve worked in some really good child psych wards, and some truly awful. The difference is usually funding. Publicly funded, not-for-profit units have to make do with less funding overall, but are miles better. The staff actually want to be there, and profit motive isnāt the main goal. For-profit psych hospitals are god-awful. Nothing like finishing a 14 hour shift, to have a mandatory meeting where the admin scream at you for not making them enough money today. Fuck you, San Antonio Behavioral Healthcare Hospital, and all of the illegal things you do.
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u/Butterfly_and_Bee 23d ago
Behaviors are a communicable disease among children. Youāll have one kid drink shampoo and then a dozen of them all drink shampoo too. Not fun.Ā
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u/Wilting_Rose_718 22d ago
I'm a social worker, supporting/supervising 11 group homes, and even though it's not as concentrated as a psych ward, can confirm the face rubbing exhaustion is sometimes daily.
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u/BasementDwellerCarl 23d ago
Thereās an entire world of people out there who are invisible to regular people.
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u/NotForPlural 23d ago
I would often drive home from my night shifts in silence, or crying. Especially after 3 in a row. It was a level of exhaustion that I did not know was possible. Handling so much loss, death, progress, relief, grief... And the physical toll of it all was overwhelming. It felt like I was in a fever dream for 6 months until I got on day shift, and then the shifts got even busier.Ā
Please be nice to your nurses, folks
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u/Maggiemoo621 23d ago
I really cannot fathom..I just donāt know how some of yāall do it, but I really appreciate yāallšš»
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u/parksa 23d ago
I relate so much to this. I still have guilt that I left emergency nursing and it's been 3 years! Night shifts made me legitimately ill, have the upmost respect for all healthcare staff āØ
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u/NotForPlural 23d ago
Yeah I walked away with an autoimmune disease and heart issues. I'm not feeling so guilty for working away from the bedside now
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u/Moist_Wind_2357 23d ago
Be nice to your patients also. Too many have this dismissive and demeaning attitude towards patients. I know many high school mean girls became nurses and it often shows.
P.S also as pantient be nice and understanding towards the nurses. Many are trying their best in system what cares very little of them. Violence is never ok and calling them names is counter intutive.
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u/Mehemig 23d ago
Yeah, also this, so much.
This should be a thing that goes both ways. Not US person so things might be different, but I was spending the nights with my mom, which was terminal from lung cancer, trying to help her out as much as I could.
One nurse specifically was so emotionally detached and angry at both her patients and patients's relatives that at some point I leashed out on her, I was not having a good time already and she was making it way worse. Other nurses even sided with me š¬
It never even crossed my mind to be angry or mad at anyone else working there. They were all so nice, and I tried my best reflecting back the light they were showing to us.
I totally get how hard it can be for nurses, after spending my nights there. Being human and kind is still needed though, I feel like.. especially when you're in such an area of the hospital.
Being kind does SO MUCH when patients and their relatives are going through such an hard time.
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u/Magpie-Person 23d ago
Be mad at the bobs in the boardroom of the hospital. Theyāre the ones that cut staff and overwork nurses.
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u/spidersfrommars 23d ago
100%. It does not have to be the way that it is, pushing nurses to their absolute limits of what they can physically and mentally handle to the point of being unsafe for patients. But the hospital and health insurance CEOs gotta make their $800k or $1 million salaries, apparently.
The ānursing shortageā isnāt real. They just refuse to hire enough nurses.
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u/Mehemig 23d ago
Regardless of the reason, nothing excuses being angry at dying patients.
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u/Tight_Man 23d ago
My epidural fully failed before they started me on pitocin I didnāt give real consent for and when I started screaming from the contractions my nurse called it āpressureā and told me I wasnāt actually feeling the pain.
The contractions were so violent my baby had a cephalohematoma from being forcibly squeezed. A 3ā wide blood filled bump from the trauma. When it broke down, she reached blood transfusion levels of jaundice but did not get one because they were so worried about putting a term baby that came from the outside with the preterm nicu. So she got some nice brain damage for all of our plight.
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u/ImWatermelonelyy 23d ago
Holy fucking shit. What an evil hospital. I know court is expensive but did you sue?
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u/SGalla310 23d ago
Totally agree on both ends. And if you can't muster the strength to be nice patients on what is probably their worst day, It's time to quit.
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u/meganam38 23d ago
My dad was hospitalized during Covid and ended up being intubated and spending 80+ days away from home, at the hospital and rehab. During his hospitalization, he coded several times, had multiple pneumothorax, blew out his trach, and had a bed sore to the bone, the size of a softball bc they couldnāt move him.
This was horror for my family. Especially because it was in the height of Covid, so we were all isolated and couldnāt see him. Butā¦this was an everyday experience for the medical staff. Every single day, dealing with trauma.
My mom is a mental health therapist and ended up befriending a lot of the nurses and doctors that worked with my dad. They were the point of contact and who held up the phone so my mom could see and talk to him. They provided support and connection nearly 24/7. She continued the relationships with them even after dad was discharged.
After seeing the harrowing DAILY experiences that the medical staff went through, my parents started a nonprofit. They do retreats for medical staff for self-care, they provide meals to the ICU, ER, and MICU. They now offer several scholarships for nursing students.
All this to say, thank you for doing so much for the community. I know burnout is nearly inescapable, understaffing is prominent, and efforts can feel fruitless. But what you do is so important and we appreciate your blood, sweat, and tears you put into your work.
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u/NotForPlural 23d ago
This really made me tear up. Please pass on my gratitude to your parents. I worked in an ICU and a stepdown unit during COVID, and it's hard to describe. I'm so grateful to people like your family, especially your mom as a therapist. Nursing may be hard, but I think being a counselor - especially for trauma - would be much harder. Hugs š¤
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u/Supergirl016 23d ago
and we all are ok with THIS work culture ! ???????
really world?
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u/NotForPlural 23d ago
This is not just a work culture thing. Yes, it could be improved by better staffing, but it's truly the weight of the job itself. Someone has to take care of the new gunshot wound victims, the new quadriplegics, the brain cancer operation patients, the massive traumas, the heart attacks. And they need a LOT of care. You get attached to patients too, and it wrenched my gut when one of them got worse, or even if I had to do something painful to them.
Truly, it would be a big help if families came prepared to lend a hand too. Some do, but most families will just watch. And some even intentionally undermine our work. I've walked into families doing very dangerous things because they thought my rules were just me being mean, not me trying desperately to keep the patient alive.Ā
So in short:Ā
Keep yourselves healthy. Don't do stuff your hospital team says not to do. If you have a family member in the hospital, ask how you might help. You will immediately be the favorites on the unit, i promise.
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u/lady_forsythe 23d ago
Iāve had way more hospital admissions and ER visits than Iād ever wish to have had in my life. I appreciate my nurses so, so much. I donāt know if itās the right thing to do, but whenever I have an actual admission, I have my husband bring them little gifts like candy and mini hand lotions as thank yous.
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u/Chance-Ask7675 23d ago
Im in allied health (audiology) and one time a young patient brought me a gift and I still tear up thinking about it. A little girl less than 3, who I was following for cancer. It was something so small but really I was like damn imagine thinking of me in this moment. I'm not a doctor or a nurse even, I see her every few weeks. You cannot understand how much it can make someone's day and as cheesey as it sounds make the entire thing worth it. Healthcare is a thankless job a lot of times and we get it, people are in their worst moments. But shit like that really keeps me going!
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u/Ch33sus0405 23d ago
I'm an EMT who does 12 and 16 hour nights sometimes, thankfully I'm senior enough not to be required to do it all the time anymore. It takes days to recover from these shifts, its devastating. Nothing like, and lemme take a look at my dispatch app here... a pair of twins getting delivered at 0520 last night, a psych emergency where the caller's parent refuses to stop crawling through their yard at 0158 the night before, and a violent domestic at 2348 the night before.
Healthcare is so rewarding but oh my god its so draining sometimes.
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u/a_talking_llama 23d ago
16 hour shifts should be illegal. I dont understand how a trucker legally cannot drive beyond 14 hours, but an EMT can be expected to make life saving decisions 15 hours and 59 minutes after starting their shift. I know i couldn't do it at the end of a 12 hour shift, nevermind after tacking on the extra half a 'normal' 9-5 work day. All respect to you folks
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u/Ch33sus0405 23d ago
Completely agreed. I'm on the negotiations committee of our union and wanted to push for either a 3 or opt in 4 12 hour shift a week schedule instead of 12/12/16 but got outvoted, instead we're doing a bunch more safety regulations. Hoping next negotiations we can be done with 16s, you're basically drunk at that point and then you have to drive home. And that's assuming you're not held over on call!
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u/TheRealMabelPines 23d ago
Agreed. Even 12 hours on shift seems excessive & potentially unsafe to me.
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u/Hepperoni4 23d ago
I remember doing a stretch of x5 12-hour nights shifts a couple years ago. I got home after the 5th shift soooo tired that I ended up crying on my kitchen floor all morning because I didnāt know how to fix it/feel better. I was so sleep deprived that I forgot how to use a bed.
That level of exhaustion isnāt something anyone can describe.
It was great prep for having a newborn as a solo parent though šš
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u/Adventurous-Sun4927 23d ago
Several years ago, I had unexpected surgery to have my appendix removed.Ā
My husband couldnāt stay with me due to the visiting hours, so post surgery I was alone. I had a night nurse that was an absolute angel is disguise.Ā I have a pretty severe phobia of needles and they needed to change my needle out. He got another nurse to come in to do it and he held my hand the entire time and talked to me to help keep me calm.Ā
I also refused pain meds because addiction runs in my family and I refuse to get involved with any of it. I just asked him for a strong dose of Tylenol. He kept coming back in to check in and make sure my pain tolerance was good.Ā
Then they moved the drug addict in my room. This woman was an absolute nightmare. He was kind and patient to her despite her cussing him up and down when she wanted more drugs and he told her she already had her dose.Ā She even called for the head nurse (manager?)to come in and lied about the entire situation.Ā
I was so pissed! When morning came around and my husband came back, I explained to him what happened and asked him to go find whoever was in charge and tell them I asked him to relay the message of what actually happened.Ā He said they thanked us for coming forward with the truth and he wasnāt really in trouble but they deal with this kind of thing all the time and itās nice for someone to stick up for them.Ā
I still think about that nurse from time to time and am so grateful for his hospitality.Ā Having a needle phobia, Iād say 98% of medical staff that Iāve encountered in my life are absolutely rude and quick to judge and say mean things about it. Itās not something I asked for and if I could just make it go away, I absolutely would.Ā Whenever he crosses my mind, I send him good vibes and hope heās doing well.Ā
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u/Mrspygmypiggy 23d ago
Pretty much, I work 12 hour (sometimes more) shifts with paraplegic and quadriplegic patients multiple days in a row. You come back from all of those shifts looking like shit and often feeling like shit.
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u/Cheesehacker 23d ago edited 23d ago
Hey ya! Curious, why does the medical profession work like that? I would think that running doctors, nurses, and others into the ground would lead to burnout and mistakes. I respect the hell out of medical professionals btw! So, in no way am I trying to insult or demean the profession(s).
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u/hotdamnhotwater 23d ago
I read something awhile back about the doctor that started the 12 hrs shift situation and he was a massive coke head. I thought it was a joke, but it's actually true. Also, there's a reasoning that if they had shorter shifts then there would be an issue because it would cause a disruption. For instance- you wouldn't want a shift change in the middle of a surgery or anything like that. I'm sure the name of the man I mentioned can be found if you look, but I haven't had my coffee yet so my brain isn't ready for all that lol.
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u/Princess_Thranduil 23d ago
Okay I had to look it up because I'd never heard of this before.
William Stewart Halsted developed a novel residency training program at Johns Hopkins Hospital that, with some modifications, became the model for surgical and medical residency training in North America. While performing anesthesia research early in his career, Halsted became addicted to cocaine and morphine. This paper dissects how his innovative multi-tier residency program helped him hide his addiction while simultaneously providing outstanding patient care and academic training.
What a fuckin asshole lol. Also sorry if the formatting gets borked, I'm on mobile.
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u/Dejectednebula 23d ago
I was at the hospital visiting my 91yo grandma last week and she had called for a nurse to help her back into bed from the chair because her tailbone bed sore became so unbearable in the chair that she was shaking and crying and unable to communicate past the pain she was in.
It was like right at 230. Someone said over the intercom they just needed to punch in and they'd be in. An hour later and I'm getting antsy watching her shake and cry and try to hold herself up off the injury with too weak arms and she's just making herself tired and more upset. Shes been here 28 days at this point. I decide ok between me and her and her walker, we can get her the two feet across to her bed, fuck waiting. Well not only was she now too weak to help herself up after all that trying to hold her butt off the chair, but the chair itself has an alarm that sounds when you stand up from it. Even with that blaring it still took another 20 minutes to see someone and that was only because it was the ultrasound tech coming in to look at her bladder and she helped us. The nurses completely forgot and I guess since her room was at the end of the hall, I could never find anyone when I would look out.
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u/hemmingwaycatlady 23d ago
Iāve had similar experiences in hospitals and itās really frustrating.
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u/Dejectednebula 23d ago
Its actually horrifying that you can spend 91 years working, raising 7 kids and a couple of the grandkids, gathering knowledge and being the epitome of a loving wise grandma, only to be discarded and treated like you're a burden in the last stages of your life.
I'm not knocking the people caring for her I understand their jobs are hard and there isn't enough of them to go around. But it feels like its easy for them to forget they aren't just at work like the rest of us. Worst thing ill do to someone by being careless at work is give them food poisoning, but they're dealing with human lives.
For the most part she has really likes her nurses and its the doctors who she gets upset with because they don't talk loudly enough for her to hear and she feels they treat her like a child by telling us things and never addressing her.
I'm just grateful my grandpa was a miner and she has his union insurance. Literally everything is covered. She could have a live in nurse and never go to a home or pay a dime for it. Its amazing. No generation after her is going to be taken care of the way united mineworkers has taken care of her over the years. And they damn well should after a mine collapsed on my grandpa and ruined his feet and gave him cancer and probably the alzheimers too from the alliminum in his system. The case worker who came in literally told her not to feel bad about "spending too much of their money" she said mam, your husband absolutely suffered in the mines to provide for his family, let us help him provide this last thing. I bawled.
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u/Suitable-Option833 23d ago
Itās only going to get much worse with big beautiful bill. Trump gutted funding for hospitals. I used to work on the census and the directive was always to cut nurses and get away with the bare minimum staffing. The nurses were exhausted and burnt out. I can tell you itās going to get much worse thanks to trumps bill.
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u/hairshirtdesert 23d ago
We have to strengthen our unions. In healthcare, in business, in trades - all industries.
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u/Sigmundschadenfreude 23d ago
Halstead absolutely was a coke head, but the error in your statement was that he started 12 hour shifts. He did not. He coined the term "resident physician" because the trainees would live at the hospital, literally residents of the building, and he wanted them to be available to work 24/7
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u/letsgooncemore 23d ago
He introduced the 24 hour shift for doctors training, not the 12 hour shift.
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u/Cheesehacker 23d ago
Oh kinda like why SNL writers to this day still stay up all night and write on Tuesdayās? The OG writers and cast and well everyone did lots of coke, so to this day writers still stay up all night Tuesday writing into Wednesday when scripts are due.
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23d ago
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/hotdamnhotwater 23d ago
That was the reasoning back when everything was hand written. Now we have computers so it's helped that issue a lot.
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u/MrsSalmalin 23d ago
I work in a hospital and will say shift change STILL contributes to more errors than usual. 90% of everything is in a computer but mistakes/poor communication still happen.
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u/RandomRedditReader 23d ago
It's usually because medical staff build up a relationship with the patient so you're more likely to pay closer attention.
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u/Ethywen 23d ago
But not due to exhaustion?
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u/qweds1234 23d ago
That's always the conversation. Also less hand offs means less doctors are needed, that's also where residents come in- the system learned to abuse the poorly paid residents so they're the ones that are often taking these longer shifts for years at a time
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u/Ethywen 23d ago
I'm sure there are studies out there, but I'd like to see one comparing quality of care in hours 9-12 of a shift vs. hours 2-5 or similar along with issues arrising from patient handoffs.
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u/Princess_Thranduil 23d ago
I would love to read a study like this but I would think it would be a huge liability for any hospital to participate. They wouldn't want to open themselves up to any kind of lawsuit that would come from the data.
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u/Rojikoma 23d ago
Would it be possible to compare studies from different countries? 12h shifts is not normal here in Sweden from what I understand (the unions would raise hell), and someone downthread mentioned it being illegal in the Netherlands.
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u/Swarna_Keanu 23d ago
Only to a certain degree. Health systems work vastly different between countries - so you might get a lot that points to correlations, but nothing clear on causation.
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u/Ethywen 23d ago
I guess. Feels like the absence of data isn't better. The problems are there whether a study is done to prove them or not. We are in the worst timeline.
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u/Iamnotanumber_4721 23d ago edited 23d ago
Very much so due to exhaustion. We have 24 hour shifts in my country there's a statistically significant increase in mortality outcomes for patients towards the end of every shift. And that's just the big d, the amount of non-fatal mistakes like giving wrong doses, giving the wrong medication, misdiagnosing,not charting things, leaving patient charts around in public, etc all skyrockets - I mean obviously - would be the same for any profession! Like imagine your job, and now imagine you've been doing it for 23 hours possibly without any breaks or food at all - how on the ball would you be equivalent to a we'll-rested fresh you!?
There's also a starling number of burn outs from doctors and nurses, but also what people don't think about is the fact that there's also a very noticeable rate of motor accidents. I mean driving tired is literally a leading cause of death for motorists and doctors after a 24 shift are 2.4x as likely to fall asleep while driving and a nicely corresponding 2.3x as likely to have an car accident than the average motorist, and 5.9x more like to have a "near miss".
Apparently the effect of 24, hours without sleep is about equivalent to driving over the DUI threshold
But the cost of human lives is less than paying for more medical staff so it's a worthwhile trade for the government to just work existing staff to the bone rather than spend enough to provide cover for three rotating shifts.
I'm not a doctor but I know through a friend a reg who has twice written off his car since he's known him as he was driving home after the shift (and it's not just 24hours either... there's a massive chance that you'll get caught to do overtime, handovers, etc and so could easily be 27-30 hours apparently... and even if you get off on time then you're back for a regular 12 hour shift after having time to race home, shower, eat as much as you can, sleep for 4-5 hours and then up and get back to it.
Like there's a reason that burnout is so massively high.
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u/Updrafted 23d ago
I'm gonna call bullhonkey on this, at least partially, because just look at her after each shift; not exactly someone I'd trust to never make mistakes, no matter how lovely she is.
I'd say it has more to do with hospitals trying to get away with running skeleton crews & the profession's obsession with lowkey hazing junior staff by giving them utterly miserable working patterns because senior doctors think it's funny or "well, I had to do it".
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u/bigbramel 23d ago
It's bullhonkey. Here in the Netherlands 12 hours shifts are pretty much illegal. It's a max of 10 hours with 2 hours of over time for a day shift (between 6:00 & 19:00 IIRC) and max of 9 hours with 1 hour of over time during night shift.
And there are way fewer problems with mistakes than in the USA. And if there was a problem, it mostly came down to ineffective communication.
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u/The_Flowers_of_Evil 23d ago
Your information is out of date and you shouldn't regurgitate it anymore.
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u/sailphish 23d ago
Part of it is that people donāt want to work more days. There is a mindset that my day already sucks, so why make 5 days suck when I can just have 3 days suck.
But there are a lot of studies showing errors happen during signout. Shift change is really crappy in hospitals. I feel like a lot of staff stop working an hour before shift change and a lot donāt really get into the groove until 1h after their shift starts. Then sign out is mostly just trusting people that they did what they were supposed to do. I canāt tell you how often I get started in my shift only to find patients never had tests or meds ordered that they were supposed to have had.
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u/Dazzling_Honey0316 23d ago
Are you my sister? This is her, too. I don't know how she deals with alarm fatigue.
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23d ago
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u/meltedchocolatepants 23d ago
It started out because the doctor who created the standards (72 hrs, etc) was on cocaine and felt that everyone should be able to do the hours he did.
After that, it became an initiation of "well, I had to do it, so you should have to too"
Then, there were some studies that showed that handoffs to other providers caused a lot of incidents. So they said "Well just not hand them off" to cause less problems. And that's where it stands.
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u/Erdapfelmash 23d ago
But (afaik), the "handoffs cause a lot of incidents" was actually during a more analog time, where medical professionals wrote everything down by hand / analog. Since we switched to digital files, where all information is more or less stored automatically or the system needs you to input the information, incidents have gone down drastically. But no one, or rarely anyone, realizes this when they plan 12+ hour shifts, and still think it's "better to have less handoffs".
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u/meltedchocolatepants 23d ago
I'm not defending it. I think it's common sense that people make mistakes when sleep deprived.
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u/Erdapfelmash 23d ago
Oh sorry, I didn't mean to directly disagree with you, I meant it more as an additional information with the same view. Like "so they said 'let's not hand them off'" "yeah, and then they never checked again if that changed"
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u/meltedchocolatepants 23d ago
I get it. š Wanted to make sure that it was clear that I didn't agree with this method
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u/rietstengel 23d ago
I figure being sleep deprived does increase the amount of mistakes made during handoff, i wonder if such studies take that into account
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u/GivingItMyBest 23d ago
Don't forget, if you split the day into three shifts instead of two you'd need to pay for a third set of staff and nobody wants to (or in the case of the NHS can afford to). I work in theatres as a scrub nurse doing both elective and emergency cases and we only do 10hours on paper. Realistically I have been stuck scrubbed up 3 hours past my shift was ment to end, multipl times, because shit happens. We don't get paid for those extra 3 hours. They aren't gonna pay for another set of staff. I consider myself lucky to work theatres. It's hard work still but my patients are asleep so they can't fight me and I don't have to interact with any "I know more than you" family members. Instead you deal with some surgeons who think they have the power of God because they can "fix" people.
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u/ceciliabee 23d ago
Written or digital, more handoffs still means more opportunities for error.
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u/Broseph_Heller 23d ago
How does that compare to the opportunities for error when someone doesnāt have enough sleep?
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u/Righteous_Hand 23d ago
A lot of modern day norms are based on bullshit like this. The commonly used Reid Technique in police work is named after a guy who psychologically tortured a false confession out of his victim, and the conviction was later overturned...but the technique is still used. Not surprising that medical standards were set by a guy on blow.
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u/notMcLovin77 23d ago
Believe it or not these standards have been negotiated down by the unions, and most state governments have the executive authority to abrogate the standards in time of crisis or in other cases unilaterally, which is how you sometimes have dangerous nurse/doctor-to-patient ratios and shifts going well over 12 hours. Nurses unions of course fight this when possible for their patientsā sake more than anything else, but in the moment you have to do what you have to do. Peak covid was a time of truly mind boggling sacrifice and misery for the already put-upon healthcare community, particularly nurses.
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u/puresemantics 23d ago
You can pry my 12 hour shifts from my cold, dead hands. I will never go back to 8ās
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u/MadRAGE1 23d ago
Yeah seriously, a lot of people think I'm suffering. No I'm thriving, please leave me with my 3 12s
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u/YRwerunning 23d ago
When you add in that detail of having more days off than days on, it becomes a totally different story. I think most people are in here envisioning those that do 60+ hours in a week. I do five 7-8 hour shifts a week and it feels brutal, I never recover, but if you gave me approx the same amount with four days off a week I'd be doing excellent. Work would never let me do it because then everyone else would want it too, it's a dream schedule.
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u/MadRAGE1 23d ago
Yeah, especially on nights. 5 8s on nights is terrible. Yes the 3 12s in a row aren't fun, lol. Of course after my shift I'm really tired. But those 4 days off where I can do what I want, travel etc are great. I get a full day of recovery plus 3 more days to do stuff. It's why healthcare is appealing to a lot of people, even though it does suck sometimes.Ā
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u/itsaeroaura 23d ago
Nothing inspires confidence quite like a doctor running purely on dry shampoo, Red Bull, and existential dread
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u/pedestal_of_infamy 23d ago
At my facility there 8 hour shifts and there are nurses who leave to work in settings with 12 hour shifts, probably more frequently than the reverse situation. Some folks do prefer to have longer blocks of time off. It is also a residential setting vs a hospital setting, so there are many other factors that might be more or less appealing to someone.
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u/Patient_Activity_489 23d ago
my mom is a 30+ year night nurse, don't come for her 12's. she did 9-5 hospice for 9 months and hated it. you only work 3 nights a week and with kids that was awesome for her, even as adults she still chooses this shift
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u/enkafan 23d ago
24 hour shifts are incredibly rare for ER docs, generally rural hospitals who might only see 1 or 2 patients over night. This hospital my wife worked at just a nice bed, TV, etc they just snooze through. Sometimes people would do like 72 hour shifts and come home well rested but pretty bored.
What you might see, however, are 24 hour shifts in the ICU where very little work is needed to be done but what needs to be done is critical. Research has shown time and time again the most critical thing is time and knowledge lost to shift change. The patient handoff is far more dangerous in an ICU scenario than a sleepy intern. Those suckedĀ
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u/10HungryGhosts 23d ago
I'm a nurse and unfortunately I can't handle this kind of work. It destroyed me š i have so much respect for hospital nurses
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u/parksa 23d ago edited 23d ago
Same, friend. I still have feelings of guilt and failure that I couldn't hack A&E full time after only a few years. I work in Blood donation and have peace and sanity now but kind of hate I had to bail out when I'm so young still.
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u/10HungryGhosts 23d ago
I so feel you. I feel awful that I can'y be more helpful in that area. I work in a private mental health clinic doing TMS treatment and I love it. It's helped me realize that we all have our place and I can still make a difference :)
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u/Own_Laugh_5080 23d ago
Honestly just be happy for your own sanity and those around you. My mother was a nurse and she did these hours, my father was a physician and did the same. They levied untold neglect and abuse upon their children. It caused generational scars on their family. They destroyed my childhood and caused permanent physical harm.
Do I think med professionals are all abusers? Since itās Reddit I have to plainly say out loud no I fucking donāt. Do I think that working this insane job for insane hours has a horrible cost for otherwise normal people? Yes.
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u/Wraith8888 23d ago
I could never go back to floor nursing. I worked an inner city hospital for 5 years. It broke me as a person. And I had done EMS prior.
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u/PalePlumm 23d ago
You know the ER is typically brutal because she took out her facial piercings for it. Sounds like a rule there theyāve implemented after learning from experience.
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u/vantablackismysoul 23d ago
After her shift with the psych kids she looked shell shocked
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u/Extreme_Egg7476 21d ago
I am so privileged in this life that "pediatric psych" was something I have never heard of. Now I'm very sad and should go to bed.
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u/EnvironmentalToe8944 23d ago
Why are 12 hour shifts even legal?!
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u/HarrietBeadle 23d ago
If you ask a lot of hospital nurses they prefer it because they get more days off in the week.
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u/MediocreCorvid 23d ago
It doesn't even feel worth it to me to get ready and go to work for six hours or less anymore lol, I'd rather just get the hours done while I'm there. I've done doubles occasionally and worked 16 hour shifts, those are too long.
When I worked EMS, 24 hour shifts were routine, though there was significantly more downtime doing that than working at the hospital.
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u/GamingTaylor 23d ago
Personally I feel 10 hour shifts are the sweet spot between not feeling horrible and enjoying more time off. (Especially considering you could have a 4-day weekend with 10 hours of pto instead of normally having to use 16 hours)
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u/Swoly_Deadlift 23d ago
I do 10s and disagree. I have enough time after work for dinner and the gym and thatās about it. Iād rather just work 12 hours and get an additional day off versus having 4 days where I donāt have enough time to do anything after work, but still have enough time to feel bad about not doing anything.
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u/Octopus_on_fire_ 23d ago
My GF is does three 12 hour shifts at the hospital, loves it.
Yes those three days are pretty much useless for getting anything else done, but every other week her shifts line up where she has 5 days off in a row.
I couldnāt imagine having 5 days off in a row twice a month. Iād kill to do this.
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u/earfullofcorn 23d ago
Itās not that bad. If I could work 12s again I would. Iāve worked a job that was 7 on and 7 off 12 hour shifts. You put your head down and do it.Ā
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u/Western-Bowl2011 23d ago
seriously asking, how is this in any way a sustainable job? Is working 12 hour shifts a common thing? How could anyone get up again to go do this day after day?
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u/MediocreCorvid 23d ago
Honestly, I much prefer 10 or 12 hour shifts to 8s, so long as I get to work less days a week for it. 4 tens is worth the extra day off midweek, 3 twelves isn't bad either. Going from days to night's and back kills you quickly though.
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u/diabolikal__ 23d ago
I am not a nurse but I did have a job where we would work 10h shifts. It was physically and somewhat mentally draining because I was on my feet all day outside. One week weād work 5 days and the next week only 2 and I LOVED it. On the long week weād have wed-thu off so you got a break and the week you only worked 2 days was glorious.
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u/anonadvicewanted 23d ago
my dad did 12 hour shifts as a power plant operator, 4 on 3 off. they would alternate day shift and night shift every few weeks or so. it seemed like a manageable thing for him, but it wasnāt nurse work either lol
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u/Western-Bowl2011 23d ago
I would think the added morbidness of seeing people die or constantly near death would take being a nurse up a notch TBH.
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u/baileyjbarnes 23d ago
It's the standard for nurses in hospitals. Been doing it for 8 years. You get used to it pretty quick actually and I much prefer it to working 5 days a week with a 2 day weekend. 4 days off a week makes it super worth it for me.
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u/Lexieeeeeeeeee āØchickāØ 23d ago
i just finished a week of 5x 12hr shifts as a bus driver and i feel like "day shift er" rn
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u/bleepbloop1900 23d ago edited 23d ago
Film industry here! Our standard shoot hours in my country is 12 hours, to a maximum of 15 with overtime. Sometimes I do this 6 days/ week for a few months.
Honestly, the country I used to live in had no maximum, and sometimes Iād be on set for 35+ hours and theyād still consider that āone dayā so 12 hours actually feels incredibly humane to me now lol
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u/Scud000 23d ago
I worked 12-hour shifts as a customer service rep in college, usually 2ā3 times a week. We had a standard script for answering calls, so after enough hours you could practically say it in your sleep. One day, right at the end of my shift, I was already in my car leaving when my boss called my personal cell phone.
I answered without thinking: āThank you for choosing [Company], how may I help you?ā
There was a pause and my boss, completely monotone, goes:
āYou're stupid Scud.ā
He thought I was making a joke but I wasn't.
I was just so brain-fried after 12 hours that my brain decided that that call was a customer-service call.
I had already clocked out physically but my brain hadn't.
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u/sistermarypolyesther 23d ago
Ha, I've done that too. Also had a difficult time remembering which department I worked in when I changed jobs.
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u/CandyCreecher 23d ago
Oh my god, she needs a bubble bath, a home cooked meal, and a restful sleep in that order!
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u/BanjoTCat 23d ago
People do surgery, ER, and psych at the same time?
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u/ghostwriggle 23d ago
to clarify, she's probably not working IN the operating room, but a hospital unit that cares for post-surgical patients. and yeah, in a single hospital there can be float nurses who go between specialized units as needed, as long as they have the training for it!
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u/parksa 23d ago
She probably works for an agency, still unusual to cover that many specialities though.
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u/Kinetic92 23d ago
12-hour third shift RT/ECMO. Yeah, I can relate to these videos.
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u/EmotionalSupportBoob 23d ago
Nurses prefer their 12s, guys. It's the nature of the work itself that's exhausting, not the length of the shifts. I don't know a single bedside nurse that would happily trade 3 12 hour shifts with 4 days off a week for 5 8 hour shifts and I've been an RN for over 15 years.
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u/boundlessbio 23d ago
Working 12 hour shifts in healthcare should not be legal. Patient outcomes are for sure negatively affected.
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u/gosmellatree 23d ago
Whatās really dangerous is playing telephone over and over againĀ
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u/bigtiddyhimbo 23d ago
The shareholders donāt care about patient outcomes as long as they can still extract money from them
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u/Blze001 23d ago
The pediatric psych expression, that's the face of someone existing on vending machine snacks and way too many energy drinks. Not a nurse, but I know that existence all to well from 16 hour military shifts.
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u/HeelDoors 23d ago
Shout out to my sis whoās been an OBGYN Nurse for 20+ years. Working 12 hour night shift nearly that whole time.
I donāt know how people do it. I did 12s on a day shift for six months and had to stop. Just wasnāt for me, the pros/cons didnāt work and I much preferred 8s on a five-day a week schedule.
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u/Screaming_lambs āØchickāØ 23d ago
I used to do 12 hour shifts as a care assistant in nursing for people with dementia. It was definitely exhausting.
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u/I_need_a_date_plz 23d ago
I feel like this demonstrates no one should have to work 12 hrs a day regularly
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u/sandwichcrusader 23d ago
It's almost like 12 hour shifts are unreasonably hard on the body and mind.Ā
It a good thing that 6 and 8 hour shifts cause giga cancer in employees, and there is absolutely no reasonable alternative to a 12 hour shift.Ā
If you're daft thenĀ /SĀ
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u/grumblewolf 23d ago
12 hour shifts in any job are absolutely the dumbest thing ever. Itās insane that humanity can have all this knowledge of its own biological needs and just go, ānope! Society go brrrrrrrā and there you go. Pretty sure doing for any kind of long term is a death sentence. Our bodies just arenāt supposed to function like this.
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u/Acrobatic_Dinner309 23d ago
Working longer than eight hours, especially within healthcare, is insane in my opinion.
The effectiveness of a persons focus and performance is drastically lowered the longer they work.
I've read some of your answers about there being a risk of errors during shift changes, but the solution to that should be more healthcare workers working simultaneously and a better system for transferring patients, not working people to death.
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u/Avia_NZ 23d ago
Fun fact: pilots often work more than 8 hour shifts.
Oh wait, thatās not fun at all actually
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u/Superb_Leg_1585 23d ago
Pilots on long haul flights have a third copilot and they work in shifts specifically so one can sleep.
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u/tragicallyohio 23d ago
Day Shift ER probably should have been no. 1. She didn't look like herself.
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u/BexTrexNeef 23d ago
I'm torn between showing this to my nursing students to prepare them, or trying to bury it at the bottom of the ocean so they don't all immediately quit...
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u/WithoutDennisNedry š»Exhausted Jillš» 22d ago
Why on earth do we make medical professionals do inhumane 12 hour shifts? That should be illegal for anyone, much less the people who are supposed to help people not die. What is the actual fuck is up with that?
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u/MaximusHomerdrive 23d ago
A 12 hour shift doing anything is going to leave you fried. Unless you're getting paid to sleep or otherwise slack off.
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u/Enough-Flan-5541 23d ago
In graduate school, I remember my boyfriend saying that I said āso whatās the differential diagnosis?ā in my sleep. I was so āonā that I eat, sleep, medicine 24/7
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u/jackparadise1 23d ago
Why are the shifts so long and back to back? It just seems like it would take a crazy toll on the staff! Why not three 8 hours shifts a day instead of the two twelves?
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u/Achylife 23d ago
I personally don't think 12 hour shifts should be a thing unless there is an all hands on deck emergency. It just promotes employee burnout. Exhausted employees make more mistakes and are more likely to quit. They might even have an emotional breakdown or accident driving home.
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u/Hefty_Breadfruit 23d ago
Why is this the norm? Why do we do this to the people in charge of keeping people from dying? Itās insanity that we do this to healthcare staff
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u/KandyShopp 22d ago
As someone who has been in psych units, Thank you so much nurses! I know I was bad, I know I was difficult, I know I bit you, but every day they came back, waved at me, and made sure I took my meds until I was stable enough to go home. Even when I fought, kicked, bit, spit, etc. they wanted me better even when I didnāt want it.
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u/AltruisticPossible84 23d ago
Not even my job and I want to quit.
Thank you to everyone who does work like this
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u/henrikhakan Official Gal 23d ago
Nurses are indestructible heroes. I work in tech, my salary vastly out grows a common nurse salary. When I don't go to work some millionaire misses out on another million, but when a nurse don't go to work her ass off at her job people could die. It ain't fair and nurses deserve so much more.
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u/vanityinlines 23d ago
You can work in an ER with snakebites and an eyebrow piercing? Seems like a recipe for disaster.Ā
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u/itrashcannot 23d ago
I'm surprised she's allowed to wear facial piercings. I thought hospitals & clinics usually don't allow it bc of safety precautions.
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u/espresso_martini__ 23d ago
They dont get paid enough. I mean all nurses. I have been in hospital before and I have seen the nasty people they have to deal with.
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u/TurtleHurtleSquirtle 23d ago
I have friends who are nurses, burnout is real and terrifying to watch. Itās insanely sad to watch the passion for helping others be ripped from someone because the job just beats them down nonstop
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