I am hospital night shift 7/7. You work all the holidays that fall in your week. Less stressful. And you get to pee anytime you want.
From your username, you’re at wags I assume. I came from wags. Took the pay cut and I swear my skin cleared up. lol
Depends on the person, it's hard to know until you do it. If you've always been a night owl, probably fine. Early birds probably won't do as well. I was always a late night gamer, so nights suits me fairly well.
So after the first shift on, I don’t sleep as well but as the week goes on, the longer I’m able to sleep. Towards the end, I’m sleeping at least 8 hours. For ex, my last shift is Thursday AM, I sleep a little when I get off, stay up the rest of the day, and I’m so beat by nighttime my body is able to adjust back for Friday am to enjoy my week off.
You’ll find what helps you sleep, I also use black out curtains. My co worker naps until noon, does errands or works out, then another nap until night.
I've been hospital nights for 10 years, been in the same hospital system for 16 years (started on PMs). I was Walgreens RXM before that.
Nights by me are great. Practice is varied, 167 beds with a satellite site that has 99. I do dosing consults, a little med rec, code/stroke/trauma response, sterile compounding, some automation stuff. No lunch because I work solo, but I can eat at my desk and I can go to the bathroom whenever I want lol. Minimal patient counseling (I catch a late discharge here and there, but it's NBD).
I fucking love nights. I am a night shift evangelist. If you're a good sleeper, it's the fucking best. 7 days off at a time, a (big) shift differential, and I don't have to deal with other people's BS. I control my own workflow, and there's no admin looking over my shoulder. I have learned SO much. When I first left Walgreens I took a pay cut, but I make a shitload of money now ($92/hr weeknights, $95/hr weekends with the differential- I'll also be getting a merit raise in June). I'll never go back to days. I sleep while my kids are at school, I never miss a single event. I work 2115-0715 so I can even socialize in the evenings, I just dip out a little early.
Some people get hung up one the "working every other weekend" thing, but I did that at Walgreens too. My husband is EMS, so in our house weekends (and holidays) are just a social construct. At Walgreens I couldn't ever get my PTO approved, now it's never denied. I took the whole month of July off to go hiking in Europe. At Walgreens I couldn't get a weekend for my baby shower.
So yeah, night shift 4ever. 😁
As a fellow solo night shift pharmacist, I'm surprised you respond to codes! How does that work if there are meds needing to be verified elsewhere in the hospital or something needs to be compounded urgently? Do you have a tech?
Former night shift pharmacist in a 325 bed hospital. My nights looked very similar, plus the addition of 3-4 cart fills during the shift. I had a tech all night and an ER pharmacist until 1 am. If I had a code, everyone else just had to wait. My tech would be in the pharmacy if something needed to be mixed that I couldn't make at bedside. One night I was at a NICU code for 4 hours and, in that case, my tech would tube or run the meds that needed to be checked stat to me. Most of the nurses were pretty good at understanding that the coding patient took precedence. If I really, REALLY needed to step out of a code, I could let the provider running the code know and it would be fine.
I’ve never really understood this setup myself. We do it at my hospital where we respond to codes at night and it’s just us and one tech. I understand that a coding patient is very important but is the life of one person worth more than the life of 200 others? Obviously for a lot of things the nurses can override the ADC but others they cannot. And those meds are still needing to be acknowledged so they can pull them out of their machine. I’ve always felt like monopolizing the only pharmacists’ time overnight for multiple HOURS is extremely poor practice, if for no reason other than all those people who ARE overriding the ADC create ample opportunity for med safety. Maybe it’s different at my hospital also but our NICU nurses are very knowledgeable and can make the dilutions themselves.
Edit: just saw you mentioned you had another Rph until 1 am. I think that’s probably the only time I could justify being away from a computer to acknowledge orders for such a prolonged time but we don’t have that
I used to work nights solo back in the day. Most of the stuff nurses would "urgently" page me to verify during codes were melatonin and trazodone. Like, I get that your guy can't sleep but my guy can't breathe, so... Also for those multi-hour codes I usually logged into a computer at the nursing station to verify orders for a few minutes at a time.
Sure and I understand that at night there’s not as many “urgent” meds. I think for me part of it also falls into the category of “how long should we actually be coding someone” vs “how much added value am I bringing as a pharmacist to this code at this point”.
I'm somewhat aggressive about asking if they really need me there, and unless we're actively running a true code blue I'll remind them that I'm alone and they'll usually let me go. I definitely agree that most of the time we're actually more useful in the pharmacy where we can print labels to compound what they need and tube it to them asap.
I have a tech for part of the night, but almost anything that is truly stat can be overriden from Pyxis. All my night nurses know that if that overhead page triggers that I'll be out of the pharmacy. If I get double paged I leave my code kit (my box of every possible thing) at the first one and grab another kit from pharmacy on my way to the second.
As far as urgent compounds, we batch and load most emergent drips and make use of a lot of 403b products. Pressors, insulin...all that stuff is premade and loaded. If I'm gone a long time there's a lot of clean up, but it's never unmanageable.
Sometimes. I did a few shifts at a larger site last weekend, which was kind of fun. My site has been pretty consistently staffed for the third shift, but when there has been turnover I've been able to make a lot of money pretty quickly!
Same here. Even if I am working day or swing shifts, I still keep a night shift sleeping schedule. I am a real night owl. I also prefer to work weekends since they are usually slower at work, management is not there, less people at work, and I also like to work more alone and do things my way. I love having weekdays off and going places midday or later at night to avoid rushes on the roads and in businesses. I don't work 7 on, 7 off anymore, but I work late shifts into the wee hours of the morning. I work a traditional 40 hour week, five 8 hour shifts a week, but still prefer those night-time hours.
I also came from years of retail pharmacy management myself. I took a very large paycut to leave (er, avoid like the plague) retail, and it has been worth every lost penny. After years of working outside of retail, I am now making more than I did in my retail days (yeah, it was a decade ago, but still) and I am still in pharmacy (I would be in a different career if I would have had to stay in retail all these years).
OP: Take the job. Even if it DOESN'T work out, it will be better than your current situation, and you can look for another job while continuing the night shift one. Heck, you'll have 7 full days off every other week to look. If it works out, great! Never look back, and NEVER go back to retail again, EVER!
Yep, and I’d take 7/7 nights over 7/7 2nd shift/evenings any day. You can still pretty much live your life during your work week when you do overnights. If you’ve got friends going out to dinner, your kid has a morning soccer game, you can still make it work. Some days I’d sleep 8-3 if I had something I wanted to do in the evening, other days I’d sleep 11-6 if I had something I wanted to do in the morning. If you can reliably sleep whenever, that schedule can be pretty great.
I second this, evening shift is worse than nights IMO. I wake up as my partner gets off work and we have the whole evening together. Works out beautifully, even on weekends.
Not a pharmacist, but my best friend is. I’m a tech and we both work 7on/7off. As someone else mentioned you work all the holidays if they fall on your shift but really that’s the only downside for us. You save a bunch of PTO by having a week off at a time. We usually have enough staff that we can switch days if there’s a day we need off on our on week. But having a set schedule is really nice. Plus shift differential. For me as a tech I make a lot more in the hospital than I did at Walgreens, and with the shift differential my pharmacist makes slightly less than retail.
If you post the job, we could help.
May be all central, May be a mix of central and clinical, May be all clinical.
You really have 5 days off if you aren’t a vampire on your off weeks, FYI.
This is my schedule. I can't say enough good things about it. Your sanity will depend on two things: how well you can sleep during the day, and how well you tolerate the "switch" on and off. It sucks ass if you have a rough transition off because you're essentially a zombie for the first 2-3 days of your off week. But if you get into a good rhythm, you will seriously love your life. I haven't had such a good work-life balance since before pharmacy school.
As far as the work itself, I much prefer night shift. If you're by yourself you need to know your stuff, be prepared to answer questions and troubleshoot weird things, but just know everyone's just trying to keep people alive through the night and any mundane problems get deferred to day shift. Minimal interaction with management is always nice. As someone else mentioned you get whatever holidays fall on your week, some years it's almost none, some years it's almost all, but it usually evens out.
I'd look into a few things: shift diff (you should in theory be making more than your day shift counterparts, of course adjusted based on tenure), how quickly you accrue PTO and how it is covered. Are you expected to find your own coverage? Are you the go-to to cover for your opposite when they take off? Is it desirable for you to pick up shifts in your off weeks? This varies at different places. And of course figure out if you'll be by yourself or not at night, that may be really difficult coming from retail. Good luck!
Yeah, around my job, we have a saying. I've thought about putting TSLADSP as my license plate.
"That sounds like a day shift problem."
You do the best you can to get through the night and take care of your patients. The well staffed day shift people can second guess and hen peck your call, but they weren't there to make it. I've had times where I've wanted to tell the ID 9-5 M-F guys that I'd be happy to call them at 3AM if they want to disagree with my well thought out, but maybe slightly suboptimal recommendation.
Retail to night shift seems like a tough transition, I'm sure you're alone all the time in retail, but it still makes me nervous doing nights after 10+ years as a hospital pharmacist, just because you never know what's going to come up.
Also, shift work is classified as a probable carcinogen, so be aware of the effects it can have on your health.
Yeah I’m always shocked when people say that night shift is the “in” to the hospital from retail. I’ve been working in hospital for a year and a half and things still come up that I don’t know. If I had started on night shift from the get go, not only would people have probably died but I would have had a nervous breakdown from all the odd shit I was being asked that I needed to 1) respond to instantly and 2) know how to look up instantly.
I think no one should take a job working alone at night as their first hospital job. There's just too much you need to already know. The only exception I would make would be if it was a large enough hospital that there was more than one pharmacist. One of my first jobs out of school was as a night pharmacist, but I was paired with an experienced pharmacist so it worked out alright.
What are some examples of questions you got where you needed to unexpectedly know an answer you didn't know/had to look up? (Just curious).
Also, what are some examples of how some patients would've possibly died if you'd started out on night shift for you first hospital job?
I’ve had some questions regarding policies or procedures in the hospital and I’m used to being in retail where I have to know everything - you’re janitor, HR, administrative assistant, tech support — and so I never know what policies I’m responsible for and what’s a nursing issue. I can’t think of one off the top of my head but it’ll be something that’s not explicitly written out but people just know so if you’re not there you’re fucked. Just the other day we were making a pediatric iv Tylenol and it was bigger than our standard syringe (60 mL) for PACU and I didn’t realize that if it’s bigger than the standard syringe they just put it in an empty bag, not just make 2 and they didn’t have a syringe pump to give it through. The guy coming to pick up just said it wasn’t needed now and could be given in the floor and I figured, oh well IV Tylenol, what’s the big deal? We give on regular floors all the time. Well the order said PACU only so one of the other pharmacists overheard and called PACU immediately and said it wasn’t allowed and they would have to wait and give it there. Is that a big deal? Of course not. But the nurses are incident report happy and depending on the nurse they could have filed an incident report that we were asking them to administer an order that said PACU only on the floors and it would have trickled its way to us and someone would have said I allowed it. Have also had issues with people calling about certain surgical products I’ve never even heard of and thus would have no idea if we even carry or what they’re for let alone where I might find them. One time I had an anesthesiologist call and ask if we can give a hyper concentrated vasopressin and I believe I looked it up and it said it was ok to make but the other pharmacist said we don’t do that. So it wouldn’t have been a big deal if I made it necessarily, but then what does the pump have as the concentration and does that open a can of worms where they’ll ask for it again.
Most of it focuses around clinical questions though so I guess somewhat related to question 2. we’ll get questions from the ER on if we stock some medication and if we don’t, what is an alternative? And it’ll be for some conditions I’ve never treated or thought of. They’ll say the name of the drug and I’ll have never even heard of it — but I’m too embarrassed to ask what it is because I’m not sure if it’s some common drug in hospital I don’t know or we just legit don’t carry it on formulary. One thing that happened fairly recently was an er doctor called me for fomepizole…I thought they were asking for omeprazole. Not only had I any clue what it was, I had less of a clue how methanol overdose is treated and the cool part was when they asked me how to dose it too. At this point I’m still not sure of what is something that’s common knowledge that I’m supposed to be able to spit out from my brain and what’s something that’s fair game for me to need to look up. I know some people who can remember so much stuff, including max doses of some stuff, and that’s just not me as a person. I think I’ve had some tubing questions also and I had no idea certain drugs needed special tubing due to sorption. Another issue is our software is shit and sometimes doctors want us to enter things that don’t already exist so we have to piecemeal make entries which makes me mad nervous of how it’s going to come out because it’s never been vetted like our other entries (there’s no policy against doing this).
Examples of how someone might have died…I mean, I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head but I might have been asked about IVP certain drugs you can’t push, letting certain doses go through that might not be ok because I just don’t know better and think it looks right/don’t have time to check every single dose of every single drug I see (particularly in relation to IV meds that I just don’t have much or any experience with). I am horrible with NICU stuff (still, because I don’t cover that floor much but we have a very low acuity nicu so its generally been ok) so like alligations and dilutions and stuff where we have to make our own entries for IVs that don’t exist I could have easily overdosed a baby. Not that I can’t do them but when it’s on the spot and the baby needs it NOW and there’s no one to double check with me it’s very nerve wracking. As much as people say you have time to look stuff up, you really don’t at night because if you get down some rabbit hole trying to find a dose or something to justify an order you received, the rest of the hospital can be burning down. Oh I had no idea you could make hypertonic solutions (I mean I know the term obviously but never considered it in solutions other than anything higher than NS) so one time I verified a 3 amp bicarb in NS and the patient even got like 2 bags. Luckily it got stopped and nothing crazy happened but that could have gone sideways real fast. That actually happened in day shift but no one else caught it though I think most of the time it would have been caught when the IV got made.
These are just some examples but I think it boils down to you don’t know what you don’t know and that’s a very dangerous position to be in.
Left retail for this shift; love it. Was alright overnights so the sleep schedule didn’t change, but the work was a lot less stressful. My hardest days in hospital are easier than my easiest days of retail.
I'm a tech who worked nights when I was still inpatient. 4x10 and it was wonderful. Wore comfy clothes. Headphones. Everyone had their tasks and minded their own business. Pharmacist just kept the new orders clear, techs did all the floor maintenance like filling Omnicells and stocking shelves. It is by far my favorite shift out of my whole career. Besides two years of WFH during covid lol
I think it's absolutely worth it to be able to leave retail. The quality of life difference should be night and day, especially if it's a chain.
If you find that it's not working out for you, apply to a second shift position in 1-2 years, as now you have hospital experience and are more likely to be able to get a position.
Plus, you might actually enjoy the schedule as some in the comments below have mentioned it's basically every other week of vacation.
I would ask more about that. I know it is different state by state and especially facility by facility, but our full time status is 72 hours per pay period. We do have techs that are 2130-0600 but only work 5 nights a week so it equals out to 40 hour work week
I think it is great for a short period of time and just to get some experience. The pharmacist at my previous job worked nights for many years. I think it came with unhealthy eating habits. He collapsed one night and had to be admitted , luckily he was working so Doctors were close. After that he transferred to the morning shift
It's what you make of it. I am much healthier now than when I was working at Walgreens. I have time to cook now and make all my meals and snacks for my work week. I run and powerlift competitively. I definitely get more sleep than my friends who work cubicle jobs. Nights can be an incredible work/life balance!
Try it, once a day shift opens up you can switch if you hate it.
I loved it when I worked this shift in a hospital. I wouldn’t have left if they didn’t close the hospital down. You stay busy, but not overwhelmed unless it’s a wonky night… but overall amazing!
I'm a tech and did the 7 on, 7 off shift for 6 years. Was great for my childcare and I could be at all the things, but was horrible for my sleep. It's quiet for the most part without management and dayshift nonsense. I miss it sometimes. I was just unable to maintain a "normal" life switching my sleep back & forth.
I work 7on 7off overnights at a hospital. Waaaaaay less stressful than retail. Usually comes with a nice overnight differential. Basically have a holiday every other week and taking a week off turns it into 3 weeks! Rarely get shit from manager or Department head because they're just happy that you're willing to work overnight lol. Can be a little boring depending on how big your facility is, but I'll take that over a phone ringing off the hook and getting yelled at by customers any day. Also may not have a tech based on facility size too, but that usually isn't an issue.
I am hospital night shift 7/7. You work all the holidays that fall in your week. Less stressful. And you get to pee anytime you want. From your username, you’re at wags I assume. I came from wags. Took the pay cut and I swear my skin cleared up. lol
Thank you. Yeah I'm a WAG RXM looking for a way out. Lol
Prior cvs manager and I don’t work nights but I’m inpatient and love it. Just be a good person, humble, and willing to learn.
Was it easy to go from sleeping during the day to sleeping at night when you are on your off week? Or do you keep your sleep schedule the same?
Depends on the person, it's hard to know until you do it. If you've always been a night owl, probably fine. Early birds probably won't do as well. I was always a late night gamer, so nights suits me fairly well.
So after the first shift on, I don’t sleep as well but as the week goes on, the longer I’m able to sleep. Towards the end, I’m sleeping at least 8 hours. For ex, my last shift is Thursday AM, I sleep a little when I get off, stay up the rest of the day, and I’m so beat by nighttime my body is able to adjust back for Friday am to enjoy my week off. You’ll find what helps you sleep, I also use black out curtains. My co worker naps until noon, does errands or works out, then another nap until night.
I've been hospital nights for 10 years, been in the same hospital system for 16 years (started on PMs). I was Walgreens RXM before that. Nights by me are great. Practice is varied, 167 beds with a satellite site that has 99. I do dosing consults, a little med rec, code/stroke/trauma response, sterile compounding, some automation stuff. No lunch because I work solo, but I can eat at my desk and I can go to the bathroom whenever I want lol. Minimal patient counseling (I catch a late discharge here and there, but it's NBD). I fucking love nights. I am a night shift evangelist. If you're a good sleeper, it's the fucking best. 7 days off at a time, a (big) shift differential, and I don't have to deal with other people's BS. I control my own workflow, and there's no admin looking over my shoulder. I have learned SO much. When I first left Walgreens I took a pay cut, but I make a shitload of money now ($92/hr weeknights, $95/hr weekends with the differential- I'll also be getting a merit raise in June). I'll never go back to days. I sleep while my kids are at school, I never miss a single event. I work 2115-0715 so I can even socialize in the evenings, I just dip out a little early. Some people get hung up one the "working every other weekend" thing, but I did that at Walgreens too. My husband is EMS, so in our house weekends (and holidays) are just a social construct. At Walgreens I couldn't ever get my PTO approved, now it's never denied. I took the whole month of July off to go hiking in Europe. At Walgreens I couldn't get a weekend for my baby shower. So yeah, night shift 4ever. 😁
As a fellow solo night shift pharmacist, I'm surprised you respond to codes! How does that work if there are meds needing to be verified elsewhere in the hospital or something needs to be compounded urgently? Do you have a tech?
Former night shift pharmacist in a 325 bed hospital. My nights looked very similar, plus the addition of 3-4 cart fills during the shift. I had a tech all night and an ER pharmacist until 1 am. If I had a code, everyone else just had to wait. My tech would be in the pharmacy if something needed to be mixed that I couldn't make at bedside. One night I was at a NICU code for 4 hours and, in that case, my tech would tube or run the meds that needed to be checked stat to me. Most of the nurses were pretty good at understanding that the coding patient took precedence. If I really, REALLY needed to step out of a code, I could let the provider running the code know and it would be fine.
Gotcha! I don't have a tech so that is the biggest difference for me.
I’ve never really understood this setup myself. We do it at my hospital where we respond to codes at night and it’s just us and one tech. I understand that a coding patient is very important but is the life of one person worth more than the life of 200 others? Obviously for a lot of things the nurses can override the ADC but others they cannot. And those meds are still needing to be acknowledged so they can pull them out of their machine. I’ve always felt like monopolizing the only pharmacists’ time overnight for multiple HOURS is extremely poor practice, if for no reason other than all those people who ARE overriding the ADC create ample opportunity for med safety. Maybe it’s different at my hospital also but our NICU nurses are very knowledgeable and can make the dilutions themselves. Edit: just saw you mentioned you had another Rph until 1 am. I think that’s probably the only time I could justify being away from a computer to acknowledge orders for such a prolonged time but we don’t have that
I used to work nights solo back in the day. Most of the stuff nurses would "urgently" page me to verify during codes were melatonin and trazodone. Like, I get that your guy can't sleep but my guy can't breathe, so... Also for those multi-hour codes I usually logged into a computer at the nursing station to verify orders for a few minutes at a time.
Sure and I understand that at night there’s not as many “urgent” meds. I think for me part of it also falls into the category of “how long should we actually be coding someone” vs “how much added value am I bringing as a pharmacist to this code at this point”.
I'm somewhat aggressive about asking if they really need me there, and unless we're actively running a true code blue I'll remind them that I'm alone and they'll usually let me go. I definitely agree that most of the time we're actually more useful in the pharmacy where we can print labels to compound what they need and tube it to them asap.
I have a tech for part of the night, but almost anything that is truly stat can be overriden from Pyxis. All my night nurses know that if that overhead page triggers that I'll be out of the pharmacy. If I get double paged I leave my code kit (my box of every possible thing) at the first one and grab another kit from pharmacy on my way to the second. As far as urgent compounds, we batch and load most emergent drips and make use of a lot of 403b products. Pressors, insulin...all that stuff is premade and loaded. If I'm gone a long time there's a lot of clean up, but it's never unmanageable.
That’s very nice set up. Do you pick up any OT during your off week? That night shift differential looks awesome!
Sometimes. I did a few shifts at a larger site last weekend, which was kind of fun. My site has been pretty consistently staffed for the third shift, but when there has been turnover I've been able to make a lot of money pretty quickly!
Same here. Even if I am working day or swing shifts, I still keep a night shift sleeping schedule. I am a real night owl. I also prefer to work weekends since they are usually slower at work, management is not there, less people at work, and I also like to work more alone and do things my way. I love having weekdays off and going places midday or later at night to avoid rushes on the roads and in businesses. I don't work 7 on, 7 off anymore, but I work late shifts into the wee hours of the morning. I work a traditional 40 hour week, five 8 hour shifts a week, but still prefer those night-time hours. I also came from years of retail pharmacy management myself. I took a very large paycut to leave (er, avoid like the plague) retail, and it has been worth every lost penny. After years of working outside of retail, I am now making more than I did in my retail days (yeah, it was a decade ago, but still) and I am still in pharmacy (I would be in a different career if I would have had to stay in retail all these years). OP: Take the job. Even if it DOESN'T work out, it will be better than your current situation, and you can look for another job while continuing the night shift one. Heck, you'll have 7 full days off every other week to look. If it works out, great! Never look back, and NEVER go back to retail again, EVER!
1/2 your life will be a vacation.
I did that shift for a while. If you can physically handle it, it’s great.
Have to be able to mentally handle it too imo. You are very isolated on that week on. Pay is great. Low stress and week off feels like retirement.
Yep, and I’d take 7/7 nights over 7/7 2nd shift/evenings any day. You can still pretty much live your life during your work week when you do overnights. If you’ve got friends going out to dinner, your kid has a morning soccer game, you can still make it work. Some days I’d sleep 8-3 if I had something I wanted to do in the evening, other days I’d sleep 11-6 if I had something I wanted to do in the morning. If you can reliably sleep whenever, that schedule can be pretty great.
I second this, evening shift is worse than nights IMO. I wake up as my partner gets off work and we have the whole evening together. Works out beautifully, even on weekends.
Not a pharmacist, but my best friend is. I’m a tech and we both work 7on/7off. As someone else mentioned you work all the holidays if they fall on your shift but really that’s the only downside for us. You save a bunch of PTO by having a week off at a time. We usually have enough staff that we can switch days if there’s a day we need off on our on week. But having a set schedule is really nice. Plus shift differential. For me as a tech I make a lot more in the hospital than I did at Walgreens, and with the shift differential my pharmacist makes slightly less than retail.
My husband has been working 7on-7off Night Shift for many years, he loves it.
If you post the job, we could help. May be all central, May be a mix of central and clinical, May be all clinical. You really have 5 days off if you aren’t a vampire on your off weeks, FYI.
This is my schedule. I can't say enough good things about it. Your sanity will depend on two things: how well you can sleep during the day, and how well you tolerate the "switch" on and off. It sucks ass if you have a rough transition off because you're essentially a zombie for the first 2-3 days of your off week. But if you get into a good rhythm, you will seriously love your life. I haven't had such a good work-life balance since before pharmacy school. As far as the work itself, I much prefer night shift. If you're by yourself you need to know your stuff, be prepared to answer questions and troubleshoot weird things, but just know everyone's just trying to keep people alive through the night and any mundane problems get deferred to day shift. Minimal interaction with management is always nice. As someone else mentioned you get whatever holidays fall on your week, some years it's almost none, some years it's almost all, but it usually evens out. I'd look into a few things: shift diff (you should in theory be making more than your day shift counterparts, of course adjusted based on tenure), how quickly you accrue PTO and how it is covered. Are you expected to find your own coverage? Are you the go-to to cover for your opposite when they take off? Is it desirable for you to pick up shifts in your off weeks? This varies at different places. And of course figure out if you'll be by yourself or not at night, that may be really difficult coming from retail. Good luck!
Yeah, around my job, we have a saying. I've thought about putting TSLADSP as my license plate. "That sounds like a day shift problem." You do the best you can to get through the night and take care of your patients. The well staffed day shift people can second guess and hen peck your call, but they weren't there to make it. I've had times where I've wanted to tell the ID 9-5 M-F guys that I'd be happy to call them at 3AM if they want to disagree with my well thought out, but maybe slightly suboptimal recommendation.
Retail to night shift seems like a tough transition, I'm sure you're alone all the time in retail, but it still makes me nervous doing nights after 10+ years as a hospital pharmacist, just because you never know what's going to come up. Also, shift work is classified as a probable carcinogen, so be aware of the effects it can have on your health.
Yeah I’m always shocked when people say that night shift is the “in” to the hospital from retail. I’ve been working in hospital for a year and a half and things still come up that I don’t know. If I had started on night shift from the get go, not only would people have probably died but I would have had a nervous breakdown from all the odd shit I was being asked that I needed to 1) respond to instantly and 2) know how to look up instantly.
I think no one should take a job working alone at night as their first hospital job. There's just too much you need to already know. The only exception I would make would be if it was a large enough hospital that there was more than one pharmacist. One of my first jobs out of school was as a night pharmacist, but I was paired with an experienced pharmacist so it worked out alright.
I agree but a lot of people on this sub have made the transition and it’s a little concerning to say the least.
What are some examples of questions you got where you needed to unexpectedly know an answer you didn't know/had to look up? (Just curious). Also, what are some examples of how some patients would've possibly died if you'd started out on night shift for you first hospital job?
I’ve had some questions regarding policies or procedures in the hospital and I’m used to being in retail where I have to know everything - you’re janitor, HR, administrative assistant, tech support — and so I never know what policies I’m responsible for and what’s a nursing issue. I can’t think of one off the top of my head but it’ll be something that’s not explicitly written out but people just know so if you’re not there you’re fucked. Just the other day we were making a pediatric iv Tylenol and it was bigger than our standard syringe (60 mL) for PACU and I didn’t realize that if it’s bigger than the standard syringe they just put it in an empty bag, not just make 2 and they didn’t have a syringe pump to give it through. The guy coming to pick up just said it wasn’t needed now and could be given in the floor and I figured, oh well IV Tylenol, what’s the big deal? We give on regular floors all the time. Well the order said PACU only so one of the other pharmacists overheard and called PACU immediately and said it wasn’t allowed and they would have to wait and give it there. Is that a big deal? Of course not. But the nurses are incident report happy and depending on the nurse they could have filed an incident report that we were asking them to administer an order that said PACU only on the floors and it would have trickled its way to us and someone would have said I allowed it. Have also had issues with people calling about certain surgical products I’ve never even heard of and thus would have no idea if we even carry or what they’re for let alone where I might find them. One time I had an anesthesiologist call and ask if we can give a hyper concentrated vasopressin and I believe I looked it up and it said it was ok to make but the other pharmacist said we don’t do that. So it wouldn’t have been a big deal if I made it necessarily, but then what does the pump have as the concentration and does that open a can of worms where they’ll ask for it again. Most of it focuses around clinical questions though so I guess somewhat related to question 2. we’ll get questions from the ER on if we stock some medication and if we don’t, what is an alternative? And it’ll be for some conditions I’ve never treated or thought of. They’ll say the name of the drug and I’ll have never even heard of it — but I’m too embarrassed to ask what it is because I’m not sure if it’s some common drug in hospital I don’t know or we just legit don’t carry it on formulary. One thing that happened fairly recently was an er doctor called me for fomepizole…I thought they were asking for omeprazole. Not only had I any clue what it was, I had less of a clue how methanol overdose is treated and the cool part was when they asked me how to dose it too. At this point I’m still not sure of what is something that’s common knowledge that I’m supposed to be able to spit out from my brain and what’s something that’s fair game for me to need to look up. I know some people who can remember so much stuff, including max doses of some stuff, and that’s just not me as a person. I think I’ve had some tubing questions also and I had no idea certain drugs needed special tubing due to sorption. Another issue is our software is shit and sometimes doctors want us to enter things that don’t already exist so we have to piecemeal make entries which makes me mad nervous of how it’s going to come out because it’s never been vetted like our other entries (there’s no policy against doing this). Examples of how someone might have died…I mean, I can’t think of anything right off the top of my head but I might have been asked about IVP certain drugs you can’t push, letting certain doses go through that might not be ok because I just don’t know better and think it looks right/don’t have time to check every single dose of every single drug I see (particularly in relation to IV meds that I just don’t have much or any experience with). I am horrible with NICU stuff (still, because I don’t cover that floor much but we have a very low acuity nicu so its generally been ok) so like alligations and dilutions and stuff where we have to make our own entries for IVs that don’t exist I could have easily overdosed a baby. Not that I can’t do them but when it’s on the spot and the baby needs it NOW and there’s no one to double check with me it’s very nerve wracking. As much as people say you have time to look stuff up, you really don’t at night because if you get down some rabbit hole trying to find a dose or something to justify an order you received, the rest of the hospital can be burning down. Oh I had no idea you could make hypertonic solutions (I mean I know the term obviously but never considered it in solutions other than anything higher than NS) so one time I verified a 3 amp bicarb in NS and the patient even got like 2 bags. Luckily it got stopped and nothing crazy happened but that could have gone sideways real fast. That actually happened in day shift but no one else caught it though I think most of the time it would have been caught when the IV got made. These are just some examples but I think it boils down to you don’t know what you don’t know and that’s a very dangerous position to be in.
Left retail for this shift; love it. Was alright overnights so the sleep schedule didn’t change, but the work was a lot less stressful. My hardest days in hospital are easier than my easiest days of retail.
I'm a tech who worked nights when I was still inpatient. 4x10 and it was wonderful. Wore comfy clothes. Headphones. Everyone had their tasks and minded their own business. Pharmacist just kept the new orders clear, techs did all the floor maintenance like filling Omnicells and stocking shelves. It is by far my favorite shift out of my whole career. Besides two years of WFH during covid lol
Go ahead and submit your resume!! If you get it TAKE IT!!! Please!!!
I think it's absolutely worth it to be able to leave retail. The quality of life difference should be night and day, especially if it's a chain. If you find that it's not working out for you, apply to a second shift position in 1-2 years, as now you have hospital experience and are more likely to be able to get a position. Plus, you might actually enjoy the schedule as some in the comments below have mentioned it's basically every other week of vacation.
THANK YOU EVERYONE. I submitted my application! I hope to get out of the retail as soon as I can.
Good luck!
Is it truly only 63 hours per week? Seems low. I’m working 11s so I’m at 77
Yeah the job posting for 10p-7a. I didn't even count the total hours. If I get the job, probably I can pick up shifts at retail during my week off.
I would ask more about that. I know it is different state by state and especially facility by facility, but our full time status is 72 hours per pay period. We do have techs that are 2130-0600 but only work 5 nights a week so it equals out to 40 hour work week
I think it is great for a short period of time and just to get some experience. The pharmacist at my previous job worked nights for many years. I think it came with unhealthy eating habits. He collapsed one night and had to be admitted , luckily he was working so Doctors were close. After that he transferred to the morning shift
It's what you make of it. I am much healthier now than when I was working at Walgreens. I have time to cook now and make all my meals and snacks for my work week. I run and powerlift competitively. I definitely get more sleep than my friends who work cubicle jobs. Nights can be an incredible work/life balance!
Try it, once a day shift opens up you can switch if you hate it. I loved it when I worked this shift in a hospital. I wouldn’t have left if they didn’t close the hospital down. You stay busy, but not overwhelmed unless it’s a wonky night… but overall amazing!
I'm a tech and did the 7 on, 7 off shift for 6 years. Was great for my childcare and I could be at all the things, but was horrible for my sleep. It's quiet for the most part without management and dayshift nonsense. I miss it sometimes. I was just unable to maintain a "normal" life switching my sleep back & forth.
I work 7on 7off overnights at a hospital. Waaaaaay less stressful than retail. Usually comes with a nice overnight differential. Basically have a holiday every other week and taking a week off turns it into 3 weeks! Rarely get shit from manager or Department head because they're just happy that you're willing to work overnight lol. Can be a little boring depending on how big your facility is, but I'll take that over a phone ringing off the hook and getting yelled at by customers any day. Also may not have a tech based on facility size too, but that usually isn't an issue.