Personal Narrative: Day Shift Nurse

For my Project Life presentation, I chose to do mine on a registered nurse. The reason I chose to do mine on a registered nurse is because I love to help people. When I help people, it gives me a great feeling. A registered nurse is a nurse who has graduated from a college's nursing program or from a school of nursing and has passed a national licensing exam. In order to be a registered nurse you must have either your associates or bachelors degree. You can get a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), if you want to advance in the profession. You can also get a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), it may lead to advances such as: Clinical Nurse Specialist, Anesthetist Nurse, Mid-wife Nurse, or a Nurse Practitioner.

In the past two decades, a lot of changes have been characterised in the healthcare working systems. One of these changes has been the assimilation of shift work systems and the flexibility in work schedules. The need for 24 hour care makes the healthcare professions to work with different shift systems such as 12 h, 8 h, 9 h or 10 hour shifts. However, the common shift work systems divide a 24-h day in two (12-h) or three (8-h) shifts. Nonetheless, this requires the staff to be adapted with the various forms of shift work schedules.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, once said, “I attribute my success to this:—I never gave or took an excuse.” That is an outlook on life I try to live up to. I have had a few set backs in my college career to keep me from achieving my goal of becoming a Registered Nurse. I could have easily given up on my dream but I took those hardships and turned them into fuel to keep going. My father suffered a massive heart attack and went into cardiac arrest when I first started college. It completely flipped by life upside down. I spent weeks at a time in the hospital with him. Seeing him go in and out the hospital for years reaffirmed my need to become a nurse and help others like how those nurses took care of my father. Once I

You are 20 minutes into your 12-hour shift, do you know how the rest of your day is going to go already? Ask yourself these simple questions: Do you know about your patients? Have you reviewed all of your orders and your “to-do” list? Have you already planned how to prioritize and delegate your tasks for the day? In Today’s world of nursing, a nurse must multitask, intervene when necessary, and advocate for the patients – all while educating and promoting safety. Time management is an often overlooked task by many nurses, but is essential to maintaining a stress free shift while accomplishing patient-centered care. According to Oxford’s Dictionary, time management is defined as “the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work.” ("Time Management - Definition of Time Management In English | Oxford Dictionaries") To appropriately manage time, a nurse must use prioritization, efficiency, and communication to complete obstacles that may come their way.

Since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a nurse. I am taking the very steps to be a nurse and, due to educational requirements, I had to read a memoir written by an actual nurse called The Shift by Theresa Brown. In this book, Theresa talks about her experience over a twelve-hour shift. She illustrates how a nurse works in a hospital environment with positive and negative aspects. There are so many beneficial outcomes of being a nurse such as the relationships formed between patients and nurses, and saving lives every day. But there are also disadvantages behind this profession like the long shifts nurses must work, the hierarchies of hospital jobs, the stress of life and death situations, and picky patients.

Today, my kismet, had other plans. A knock on the door resounded, followed by a heaving breath, the twisting of the doorknob, and a bang as the door shut. My eyes widened when instead of a nurse, an unfamiliar face burst into my room and my reality. Two tantalizing grey eyes peered into my own, a wild mix of fury and contention battling to surface. The latter claimed the victory. Opening a green folder, the boy steered his gaze on a stack of papers. He flipped through them until an aqua colored paper stood out to him, and ripped it from the folder. His eyes scanned the paper until he read something that turned his nonchalant expression,

Christina G. Rossetti states, "For there is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather, to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands." My name is Alyssa Snedden. I am nineteen years old and work as a Nurse Aide for the Inn at Chapel Grove. As Hailey's youngest sister, I have always looked up to her. Hailey has always provided me with love and understanding; therefore, I shall do the same in return during this bump in the road. She has never been the type of person to do anything that would cause our parents disappointment or heartbreak. These past couple months have been hard on our family but at the end of

Nursing is all I’ve wanted to do since i was 8-years old. I was the little girl who would pretend to be the nurse with a white sheet like it was my coat, and wearing my mother’s stethoscope checking heartbeats. My mother bought me a medical kit and everyday i’d check everyone’s heartbeat, blood pressure, and vitals. But at that age all I knew was i had to hold their wrist for a while not knowing what i’m feeling for, writing random numbers in a notebook, and putting my ear against their chest waiting for the “thump-thump” sound. They’d go along with me and I’d think to make the pain go away is to give it a kiss and a band-aid. Until my mom said “ Chanel stop using all the band-aids”. Then, I had to cut down on my practices.

I actually have a similar experience like you. I have a patient during my first semester that she was constantly in nervous/panic mood and always talk about how she wants to go home. I remembered the previous shift nurse and the nurse I followed have the same expressions and saying how the patient was just missing her alcohol (they were thinking she is alcoholic even though her medical record did not indicate she was a drinker). Anyway because we were taught to be non-judgmental on our patient, I decided to talk to the patient about why she was panic and wanted to go home. It ends up the patient is not alcoholic but she just don’t like to be in the hospital and constantly thinking about she may not be about to go home after all. I think many

I applaud you for being an emergency room nurse and being attentive enough to be able to catch a potential complication for the patient. My husband had an anaphylactic reaction to Morphine after a knee surgery several years ago. Recently, my husband went to an emergency room with chest pain and diaphoresis. The admission clerk immediately took my husband immediately took my husband back and alerted the nurse. The facility he went to is one my husband that has all of his current history which included his allergy. The nurse obtained lab, an electrocardiogram, and ordered a chest x-ray. She then informed the doctor of my husband’s status. The nurse then brought a syringe full of medication and nitroglycerin to my husband’s bedside. She gave my

The perfect day would be becoming a Labor and Delivery Nurse. I am so ready to become a nurse because it is my passion to work with women and their babies. The day that I become certified will be perfect because I know I have worked so hard to get to this point of my life. The day I become a nurse, I would celebrate and go out with friends and eat as much as I want and laugh. I can see myself in the future as a great and productive nurse. I actually think that my whole life would be complete after I become a Labor and Delivery Nurse. I know that not all days would be perfect because life isn’t perfect, but I do know that I will be happy as ever and that is all that should matter. I also think the perfect day would be my first day on the job.

Brent, thank you for sharing your Epidemiology of Overnight Nurses post. My previous position was a float nurse on night shift and I totally relate to how it is a challenge to your body. Unfortunately, I had gained about 30 pounds on night shift and felt frustrated. My body was always fighting with am I supposed to eat or is this just eating to stay awake. I learned our body’s need routine, sleep, and rest. Now that I work a day shift position my body doesn’t feel as though “running out of gas” all the time. My energy level has increased. I have a much better quality of sleep. My family loves that I have switched to day shift for my overall health as well.

My clinical experience with my preceptor who has been a nurse manager for ten years has been invaluable. I have been working with her for just two weeks, but I would have to say she is definitely a nurse leader. She has taken me under her wing to introduce me to new technology and computers systems within the VA. When she started, this technology was not used and she has stated and I also believe, it has made her job much easier to get multiple tasks completed in a timely manner. Informatics is the science of computer information systems and these systems are widely distributed throughout the VA. By my working with just this one preceptor I have gained the knowledge and skills necessary to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams within

"A RN's day is never typical or predictable. 12 hour shifts, 3 days a work week, and sometimes they would go through the night. Always have to be critically thinking to be prepared for any and all new situations to arise. Never always one on one with someone for the whole shift but a good portion was in direct patient care for about 90% of the time and the rest was paperwork."

It was an unpleasantly early morning in the hospital waiting room. Nurses buzzed around, busy attending to their patients while a faint beeping sound could be heard in the background. I was starting my second shift of the day at the hospital, just finishing working a shift in the dark, grimy morgue. Groggy, I sat down at my desk to begin another four hours of labor. My position was to assure that the paper work was properly completed and that all patients were attended too. While being a supervising nurse was a great responsibility, it left time to day dream.