Today I want to talk about the differences between day shift vs night shift for nurses. Maybe you’re on the fence, you don’t know if you want to work day shift or night shift when you graduate, so I want to go over the pros and cons of each to help you make your decision.

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Now I have worked both day shift and night shift on a med surg unit and in the emergency room, so I feel like I can talk to the pros and cons of both.

Alright, so first up, I definitely have to mention that if you’re in it to make more money, then the night shift is the obvious way to go. Because you’re gonna get that night shift differential, which is usually, some places do it differently. Some places do it like just a set amount per hour more, like 7 dollars more per hour if you’re working on the night shift; then other places will give like 1.25 times your base hourly rate. But either way, you’re gonna make more on the night shift. 

And when I calculated it out, it was basically a car payment every month. So about $600 more per month than what I would have made on the day shift. So that’s pretty significant. And if you’re working night shift on the weekend, then you’re gonna get even more cause you’re gonna get that weekend shift differential in addition to the night shift differential. So that’s what I tried to schedule myself when I was working nights. I would try to make it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night so I would get both of those differentials to maximize the pay. Cause if you’re there, putting in the time, you might as well get paid the most you can possibly make.

Alright, another difference between day shift and night shift, is that, and this can be seen as either a pro or a con, depending on how you look at it, but during the day shift there are more doctors around, more physical therapists, more occupational therapists, more social workers around, and more management around. 

So this can be a good thing, because if an emergency situation arises or if you need to change verify an order, then the doctor is just a chat or a phone call away. Or if the patient starts going downhill fast, you can reach out to the doctor easily and you don’t feel like, you know, you have to wait until it’s an absolute emergency because you don’t wanna wake up the doctor in the middle of the night, and what if they get mad at you and yell at you? You’re not as worried about that because the doctors are already there working anyway. So that is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing; because there’s something nice about it, I mean that’s one reason why the night shift is more quiet and less hectic because there are just a lot fewer people there; a lot less doctors putting in orders, changing orders, wanting procedures done right then and there.