Several days ago, we published “A Day in the Emergency Room for a Nurse Who Loves Her Job.” It gave an engaging, sometimes moving account of one nurse’s experience of a normal/stressful day in the ER. As it happens, colleague Theresa Stephany recently sent me the bare bones report we’re sharing today—an actual shift report from 1985. She received the copy many years ago from a friend who worked the night shift at a local hospital, and who had typed and sent it to her manager at the end of the shift. Stephany wrote to me that she “kept it all these years because it’s so horrible that it’s poignant.”
I’m sure that poor nurse was exhausted. Anyone have a shift story to tell, nightmare or otherwise?
SHIFT REPORT, 1985
TO: DIRECTOR OF NURSES
FROM: HEAD NURSE 2ND MAIN
SUBJECT: ACTIVITY RECORD, 11-7 SHIFT, 9/8/85
Memorandum:
- 12 patients in restraints, 2 in leathers, acquired during the night.
- 3 Foley catheters pulled out
- 1 chest tube inserted with 1300 cc’s pus out
- 2 temperatures over 103°
- 3 Temperatures over 102°
- 7 Temperatures over 101°
- 3 patients having DT’s
- 3 Patients having chest pain
- 3 patients having respiratory distress
- Approximately 50 “now” or “stat” orders during the shift
- Several chest x-rays done (staff to deliver to x-ray and return)
- 2 beds had to be moved to make room for a sitter patient
- 3 admissions during the night
- 2 patients sent to OR
- 3 patients received back from OR
- 2 patients abusive and expectorating at nurses from their restrained positions
- 5 IV’s pulled out by patients
- 4 other IV’s self-destructed
- An RN’s foot run over during a bed move, bringing tears due to the excruciating pain
- 1 incident report: patient pulled out and/or disconnected peripheral IV, CVP line, Foley catheter, perineal drain tube, then staggered around corridor with active DT’s
- More IV’s on the floor than patients: 40 patients, 42 IV’s
- No breaks for any employee except the two sitters
- 5 hours overtime (all PM RN’s were late also)
- The lab computer did not work.
It would be fun to know how many nurses were on duty this night. Stories like these are so important to the profession as they provide a picture of the struggles we had to get to where we are today. One of the reasons that I wrote the book “Nightingale Tales: Stories from My Life as a Nurse” published last October which chronicles the progression of nursing from handmaidens to the physician to independent practitioners.
Well at least they had the lab computer.