So i currently work in a 90 bed health and rehabilitation facility. I am one of only 2 full-time nurses to cover all 90 patients. I work from eleven at night to seven in the morning, give or take an hour after handoff reports. I rarely get a third nurse in the building during the graveyard shift so that means i am responsible for 48 patients by myself with only two CNAs at best. The thing that most people do not realize is that just because all youre patients are elderly, does not mean they actually sleep all the time. Sleep is one of the most troublesome issues in the aging population. Add issues like Sundowners Syndrome and dementia to the mix and you get an overly active and stressed out group of patients who rarely sleep. Patients such as this who struggle to sleep at night, also tend to try and get out of bed or walk and risk falling every night. With only 3 people on the unit available to tend to all the needs of these people, you spend much of your shift chasing call lights and bed alarms. The day shift often has aggressive tendencies towards third shift staff because they assume that everyone is in bed and there is little to do, implying our shift has it much easier than the other shifts. The facility where i work gave me one week training before sending me off on my own to work. Not much more than a week into my new role as night shift nurse i was assigned the entire unit of 48 patients on my own. It was a nightmare. I did not get all my medications administered by the time the morning crew arrived and they all just avoided me and made it obvious they had no interest in helping me. Regardless of being brand new to the facility. I kept working hard and night after night i gave it my all. I walked out of there an hour after my shift was over with a limp. I still walk out limping four months into my job there. What i notice most about this job is that the other 3rd shift nurses that i work with all remain committed to the job and I am beginning to really bond with the crew i work with. The rest of the staff at my facility may try hard to see the value in us 3rd shifters but i have found my place finally. I am falling hard in love with all my patients. Working on my 5th month i have not once dreaded coming into work. Im growing more accustomed to being assigned the enitre unit to myself and even though it is alot of work and hard on the body, i am finding the advantage of working third shift with less drama and more quiet. I would rather work this shift and miss out on lunch breaks than work with many of the negative attitudes that overrun the dayshift. I do feel that often times the management tries to resolve their staffing issues by pressuring the few of us that work third shift to give up our days off which are few and far in between. I love this facility especially because they allow patients to have IV’s and tube feedings, we do all our own blood draws on night shift and with all of this, having a specialty in gerontology allows us to keep these skills that you may lose if going into labor and delivery or mental health for example. I love the idea of working with people that bond together, work as a team together and laugh together. We have that even if there are only a handful of us present every night. I have accepted that there are issues in every nurse setting that must be endured or overcome. But I have also accepted that the issues in this new job are well worth the effort. I will never work twelve plus hours shifts again, i will never deal with a crowd of nurses who spend more time gossiping and complaining and at this job, when i clock out i can leave it all behind me and go home to my real life. It is hard on the body to stay awake each night when the natural design of humans is to sleep after the sun goes down. However, this too is feasable for me when avoiding all the drama that has overtaken most nursing environments. I only hope i i will continue blogging new and interesting things with this job a year later. lol. I can feel myself getting stronger to execute my job properly. I can tell this is a good place for me to learn more strength as a leader and to better supervise my crew. I hear myself thinking of all the new things i can try to bring a connection to the team and uplift others that i work with. I look forward to all i can learn and gain from this job and all the good things i have to bring to the table.