Friday 20 August 2010

It's all dark and quiet...

Dr Jr is working his first night shifts this weekend. Already I'm having difficulty with it as I don't know exactly how to shift my sleeping patterns yet and reckon I'm going to start this evening dead before it's even begun.

And then when I'm in, the non-stop pitiful bleeps are no doubt going to drive me up the wall. No doubt I'll get bleeped for surgical patients when I'm a medical on-call. No doubt someone will have forgotten to rewrite a drug chart or prescribe fluids.

And who knows, maybe I may even get a nap! Or maybe I'll just never get a chance to sit down. Am I the kind of doctor who uses Zopiclone to get my patients to sleep or will I try and calm them down first? In any case, let's just hope that for the patients I tend to tonight, it's a night shift rather than a graveyard shift...

3 comments:

hyperCRYPTICal said...

Hope your night shift went well!

What I do when working nights is to stay up late and go to bed between 2-4am on the day of my first nightshift - and rise at 2pm. Works fine and adjusts my sleep pattern.

Hope you weren't bleeped too much!

Anna G. ;o)

Dr Jr said...

Thanks for the tips!

We got a leaflet on how to adjust sleep patterns. It said to sleep normally the night before, then sleep for about 4 hours before getting up for your first night shift, then going to bed for 12-1pm to get up for a 9pm start, reversing it for going back. Seemed to work.

I'll try your way next time!

hyperCRYPTICal said...

We have different start times, so you would need to adjust. I work 7pm-7am. After my last night shift I do sleep four hours in the afternoon then later, go to bed at my normal time.

I used to do as was recommended to you (before the first shift) - but sometimes couldn't get to sleep, so was 'shattered' at times through the night.

Bravo with the CPR! That is one procedure I dread having to do - and haven't needed to yet!