My mom is a nurse in an emergency ward, and before that in ICU. She always tells me about how they work long shift (12 hrs) and never have time for breaks or meals. She says that it’s normal to go most of a day without even getting to sit down, much less have something to eat. Because she wanted to go to her neice’s wedding, she changed shifts with another nurse, and now has to work 4 12 hr shifts in a row. She also says that that’s completely normal in hospitals, and that doctors and some other personell work the same pace.
Why? Why would a hospital want to work their employees that hard? Is that really the norm at hospitals? It sounds like they would burn out faster at that pace. I understand being busy, but too busy for a meal? If a tech company did something like that there would be a union formed in a matter of seconds and picketting seconds after that. So what’s the deal?
It’s one of the things that makes me think that’s why you can’t get enough people to train as nurses and doctors. Why enter a field where they work you to exhaustion every day? It seems like they have this attude of we had to do it, now we want to make sure you suffer too.
Yes and no. The law requires breaks. In most states a 12 hour shift gets one, unpaid 30 minute break and 2 or 3 paid 15 minute breaks.
Most of the places I’ve worked, it’s peer pressure that keeps one from taking their full complement of breaks. Day shift is more consistantly busy, so breaks are harder to get. You see, patients in critical care often need something done continually. Going on a break means that someone else, who is probably just as busy, has double their load for the time one is gone.
ERs and ICUs tend to have periods of furious activity and periods of paralyzing inactivity. When it’s busy, you work, when it isn’t you chat, or eat, or whatever. Some shifts are busy begining to end, but not everyday.
Many health care unions have campaigned FOR 12 hour shifts. The employee works 3 12’s and they then have 4 days off. May or may not have been the background in your Mom’s case.
I have worked jobs where i worked 18 hours straight without a lunch or break. Honestly it is really not as bad as you think it is. I would assume why hospitals do this is because they dont have enough staff, or money to pay the extra staff anyways.
So, how common is it for health care workers (like nurses or doctors) to make mistakes (possibly life threatening ones) due to fatigue due to working long shifts?
Well, if he’s a research pharmacist working on the next big drug, makes sense; he’s working for his own reputation and career. If you’re bucking for the next BIG promotion, at those guys’ wages, it would make sense.
Personally, I’d advocate jail time for health care providers who work past a given number of hours… not sure if I’d make it 8, 10 or 12 hours.
Make no mistake, tiredness kills.
My mother is a doctor who commonly works 24 hour shifts. Sometimes they’re hell on wheels, and she rarely even gets a chance to sit down, but more often she gets at least a few hours sleep. Shifts like these though, allow her and her partners more days completely off and they offer the patients more continuity of care.
-Lil
There was a push at a local hospital a few years ago to unionize. It was very controversial, in the press a lot, and ultimately the nurses voted against it.
I have two people close to me that were hospital nurses. Twelve hour shifts is the norm. Actually, to get off on time after a 12 hour shift is what’s not normal.
I can’t remember what my sis said a patient load was for her (she was in a step-down unit from the ICU), but it was a lot per nurse. That’s why she never had time to take a meal break.
As far as why they do 7-7 shifts, I don’t know. I can guess, but this is GQ!!
Both of these nurses in my life worked in hospitals and burned out. But that had to do with being treated like crap by management and by the shitty attitude of the other nurses (ie - not wanting to work hard!!).
I’ve come across pharmacists who do this actually, throughout the course of my pharmacy internship. Many of them seem to be the driven, don’t need much sleep, type of person, in my experience.
Myself, I’d crack after 4 12’s in a row, although it’s not really from workload–it’s from essentially not getting to do anything other than work and sleep, in my case.
Yes, well, look around at all the stimulants they’re surrounded by. :rolleyes: (And I say that with all due love and respect - my dad is a pharm. d. Unfortunately, drug abuse is rampant among pharmacists, according to him.)
My friend is a nurse in an oncology unit in Ontario, and IIRC, she told me the legal limit is 16 hour shifts, with at least 8 (or maybe 12) hours of downtime between shifts. The nurses would collectively walk out if they were asked to do more than that (other than, I suppose, typical “just finishing up” work that comes with any job).
One thing I DO know for a fact, though, is that she works 4 days on, five off… two 12h days followed by two 12 hour nights, then five days. Works for the patients (cancer patients appreciate getting to know their nurses) and it works for the nurses, who get a cycle of weekdays and weekends off for living the rest of their lives. The nurses asked for this cycle.
Any pharmacist who abuses any drugs (especially from his own store’s stock) is an idiot. We’re HAMMERED in school about the danger/stupidity/consequences of doing so.
Almost all of the stimulants are controlled substances, which are easier to track when they go missing–not the kindof drug you’d want to steal, IMO.
Oh, I know it won’t eliminate it–the point is, we ARE warned about this, thus they have no good excuse to start in my book. Especially since I’d hope that people who are supposed to be functioning as healthcare professionals SHOULD have better judgement than a child or teenager.
But, back on topic, one of the advantages I’ve noted when I work a 12 hour shift is that I actually tend to have a better grasp of what’s going on, than I would if I came in later in the day. I know what patients have come my way, generally know what their problems that day were, etc, whereas shorter days (especially coming in second or third shift), more time has to be spent figuring out just what happened when I wasn’t there. And I suspect that this extends to hospital settings as well.
In the late 80’s, I worked in a hospital pharmacy as a unit clerk where our night shift only pharmacists had the same arrangement - 12 hours (10pm to 10am), 7 days on and 7 days off.
In practice, this is because it was very, very quiet most nights and most routine meds were already distributed to the wards well before then, so he was on hand for the ER and for critical care stuff. Then he would start the morning IVs and drug orders and so forth. Other pharmacists came on starting at 7am to help get them up to the wards by 8am or so. As I sometimes worked the night shift (but mostly swings) I know that in practice, you had lots of time to sit around doing nothing MOST nights, but some nights were wild! And we were not the local trauma center, either, so we would only catch overflow from them, though we did have full ER facilities.
So, yes, 12 hours on, but lots of time for breaks and stuff, which was not the case for days and swings.
This may have changed in (oh dear og, am I this old now??) the 20 years since then.
The dentist I saw when I was growing up worked ran his whole office on a 7 and 7 schedule. They worked Wednesday to Tuesday, 7am to 7pm. Then, another dentist used the same office/equipment for the next Wednesday to Tuesday.
It allowed him to be available to his patients regardless of their work schedule since he had early morning and evening appointments. And in a town where most people worked 2 week swing, he’d be available during half of each of their swings for more scheduling options. It also allowed him to completely share space with another dentist without ever having to actually be in the space at the same time, there was no overlap of start and end times, just the two of them using it on different days. I believe that once a summer, he closed up shop during his week on so everyone had a 3 week break in which to take significant vacations.
It always seemed like a hell of a good system to me.
