In Nursing, Some Things Never Change: Shift Report, 1985
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
- […]
