FEATURE
staff, it’s the team, that makes it worth it.
The morning team comes in, a tour de force of ensuring ev-
erything is tidied up for the next day’s necessity. And it feels like
sweet, sweet freedom. I pack up my bag and step outside into the
nursing station.
What I see is beautiful. I watch as my night-shift staff of nurses
pack their belongings and accumulate near an exit, but they don’t
leave. They set their belongings down and head back into the de-
partment to check on their coworkers and make sure they get out
alright as well. If there are loose ends to be tied, they pitch in. Then,
they leave as a team.
Nurses leaving after a midnight shift.
pieces of my smile I had lost earlier, telling that family I had been
unable to save their loved one.
“No complaints,” I told the cavalry, with the expected wry grin
and sarcastic undertone. Of course,
there were complaints. I didn’t need
that consultant to be grouchy with
me when I called. Believe me, I didn’t
want to call either. I understand that
if they don’t get sleep, they risk the
care they provide for their patients in
the daylight hours. So, like my fellow
night-timers, I try to make a point not
to call unless I really need something.
There were other complaints. I could
have used a few more nurses. It would
have been nice to have a chance to get
some food in the cafeteria, but the
hours and my patients’ most critical
moments of need did not coincide.
And, of course, the hospital coffee is just bad. Maybe not initially,
but I’ve worked in hospitals since I was 18, and man, that stuff needs
to come with a Protonix creamer.
I’m going to belabor this point because this is the essence of
night shift, and the reason why people like me choose to do nights.
The nurses, techs and other support staff that work nights take care
of each other. They have a bond like soldiers in the same company
after many battles. How many stories do I keep in my heart of the
incredible compassion that I have witnessed from these heroes? I
forever keep the mental image of a nurse I work with who donned
lead and cradled a non-verbal cerebral
palsy patient who came in violent and
delirious, to get him an X-ray that gave
me a diagnosis of a femur fracture to
help his suffering. That was nursing to
me, and it made me tear up telling her
boss the next morning what incredible
care she had delivered.
"Seeing the joy our
exchange gave her
recovered the pieces of
my smile I had lost earlier,
telling that family I had
been unable to save their
loved one."
Can you do more with less? This is
the basic question one has to ask them-
selves to thrive as night-shift physi-
cian. When I first got out of residency,
I think my answer to this question was
more hope than certainty. Now, after
over two years of mostly nights, I can
safely answer that with “No, but with the help of my night shift
team, there’s not much we can’t do.”
Dr. Harris practices emergency medicine at Norton Audubon.
Most of the time on nights, you feel like a zombie. You are ex-
pected to do much more with much less. You can become lonely in
a mindset burdened by the weight of an entire hospital’s emergent
care decision-making resting squarely on your, and only your,
shoulders. Medicine is a temperamental beloved, at times bringing
joy that makes you feel like you could glow brighter than all of the
myriad fluorescent bulbs relentlessly lighting the hallways at 0400.
At other times, it can give you a blow to the stomach that would
take Mike Tyson himself to his knees. So, as an outsider, you may
wonder why anyone would do the job. It isn’t the money. It’s the
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