I was reading a newly released medical thriller when I came across this passage:
“Nurses on night shift were often young (lack of seniority meant they had no choice but to work unpopular hours) and surly (i.e., pissed off about it.)”
Yes, that’s a quote. Perhaps I’m being oversensitive (okay, of course I am), but this is my profession and I don’t like me or my colleagues to be painted in such broad strokes so I thought I would give some reasons why some nurses actually prefer to work nights and are even very happy about it. These are not numbered according to importance.
1. Night Shift Differential. Nurses are generally paid a nice differential for working nights. This varies widely depending on the institution but can be a nice bump in pay. This may translate into working less and being able to spend more time with family or getting more bang for your buck for working the same hours.
2. We’re just night people. I know day shift people don’t understand that it is easier for some people to stay up all night. Our clocks are a little bit different than most other people. That’s a good thing, right? You don’t want your night nurses falling asleep and it’s a good thing some nurses like working nights because hospitals run 365/24/7. Personally, I think a crime has occurred if I have to be up before the sunrise. It feels wrong on a cellular level.
3. Child Care Reasons. Some families like to juggle one (or even both) parents working nights to limit or stave off daycare costs.
4. Less Administration on Site. This might be the night shift untold secret, but there are infinitely less administrators around during the night shift which means less overall scrutiny. I don’t mean to say night nurses are crazy with power and do inappropriate things, but there is a more relaxed feeling on nights because of this. Government entities don’t pop in at 0300 for a surprise inspection— though they might now that I’ve written this.
5. More Relaxed Pace. Many nurses prefer nights because of the more relaxed pace. Fewer tests and procedures to take your patient to. In the ER setting, less overall patients as the night goes on (though you also have less nurses to take care of those patients.) For inpatient and ICU nurses, doctors round during the day which is when the most orders are generated. Not having as many tasks leaves more time to truly connect with your patient. When we have only one or two ER patients at 4AM— we can spend a lot of time teaching and/or visiting with families.
6. They are smart, scrappy people. Not to say this isn’t true of day shift nurses, but night shift nurses usually have less resources available to them overnight. There are fewer people— fewer bodies to help in a code. Support services like lab, pharmacy, central supply, etc may not staff people 24/7 so if a patient needs something, night shift nurses have to think outside the box.
Overall, what raised my ire about these two small sentences from this author (a male physician) was the “surly” connotation. Even if a nurse doesn’t like to work nights, they do not take it out on their patients because of it. Are there cranky, surly nurses? Sure.
However, you can find them on both days and nights.
Love your night shift nurses. They are there for you when everyone else sleeps. And many are highly professional, excellent nurses with years of experience.
Redwood's Medical Edge 
As a person who did a lot of ‘night shift’ jobs (cleaning, cooking, driving, etc. including hospitals and palliative care and hospice units) – I always felt part of the team because we had time/space/need to converse and cover each other. When you work nights, you are part of something other people just don’t ever experience, like going for ‘dinner’ at 0300 at the local 24hr joint (everyone in their uniforms of the night, like cops and nurses and …), meeting up with the other ‘nighties’ for a chat and a coffee before getting back to the tail end of the shift to get out of the way of the loud and boisterous and rapido people.
I loved that life, even if no one else understood it. I like it that way. They will never understand the level of trust exchanged by regular nighties, even when exchanged between workers of highly opposing types of jobs. [I loved chatting to the local working girls, getting their stories, sharing their gossip, laughing with them about the woes of the night.]
Maybe the person who wrote the work you quoted from was one of the ‘blow-ins’ who didn’t belong in that work-scape. Never will now.
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This is so true! I do feel like night shift is much more tightly knit. Perhaps it’s because you only have a few people to depend on so those situations bond you, but you also don’t want to fight with the only nurse that has your back!
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Jordyn, I don’t read a lot of medical thrillers–maybe it’s because I lived them for the best part of four decades in private practice–but also, like you, I’ve found some errors of fact and wrong attitudes in them. I agree with you that night shift workers, especially in the medical field (which is where we both have some experience), are by and large excellent. Thanks for posting this.
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Yes, it is discouraging to see a doctor be so medically inaccurate and almost flippant about a profession he’s involved in. Sigh.
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I agree. I’m not a nurse but worked as a Nurses Aide early in my working days. Partialybecause it was easier to get a night Jon but more so because I was and still am a night owl. I enjoyed those days…
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Me, too, Vicki– total night owl!
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