WORK

So Like I said I work at LDS hospital in the Orthopedic department. In September/October of 2007 a new hospital was built in Murry called IMC. This would be the big trauma center for all IHC facilities. This caused a lot of changes to occur in my department. Most of the experienced nurses transferred down to the new hospital decreasing the staff numbers by half. This meant that I would be one of the experienced nurses (just over one year experience) left on the floor. I was trained to be a charge nurse when I had been working there for a year. A charge nurse is like the shift manager. Because of my training they needed me on night shift. At the move I was working day shift during the week and every other weekend night shift. I was not happy with this. Alternating working night and day is so hard on my body and mind. So they offered me to work all nights, monday, tuesday, wednesday. No weekends yahoo!!! So that is what I have been working since December 2007. They recently offered to let me start working days again, but.......a couple of night nurses quit, so no more discussion of that has been mentioned. People do not understand those that work nights. I sleep during the day. When people call at 2 pm or want to make appointments at those times it is like me calling on them at 2 am. I tend to get a little cranky. I have to sleep sometime. Nights are long and slow a lot of the time so if I do not get adequate sleep the shift really sucks. I have also noticed working night that I have gained weight, have mood swings (I hate to admit, but it is true), have decreased stregnth and motivation. I do not recommend working nights to anyone. On the good side I have gotten to read a lot of books.