All-Day Shifts Are Great When You Get Sleep

So, in my current rotation, OBGYN, there are two mandatory 26-hour shifts. I've now done both of them.

My first was crazy. Lots of deliveries, tons of obstetrics and gynecology patients to manage through the day, something new coming up every 15 minutes. For a good 12 hour stretch, I never sat down except to take a patient's history or catch a baby. Did manage to get about an hour and a half of sleep at 3 am or so, only because my resident (who, like pretty much all my residents, was great) seemed to take pity on me and let me nod off. When I woke up, it was back to running.

The next day was spent in a bit of a stupor - I couldn't concentrate on anything and had a wicked headache. I still felt tired the next morning when I had to show up for my next shift.

I've worked nights before, quite of few of them actually. I thought I was pretty well-prepared to handle these sorts of shifts. Turns out most of my coping involving my pre-night prep for the shift, which is fairly impossible on a 24+ hour shift.

So, I was a bit worried about how the second full-day shift would go. Well, had a very different experience, and that difference was sleep. The day overall was much quieter - fewer deliveries and far fewer consults. In some ways that's a bad thing, since adrenaline from running around was the main thing keeping me awake during my first shift. The upside, however, was that around 1 am, I got to go to sleep. For hours. Nothing came up until about 7 am when we started handover to the next group.

I still slept a bit when I got home, still felt a little bit out sorts, but basically had a real day of productivity after my full-day shift. Most importantly, I felt fully rested when I woke up for my next shift.

Anyway, just a friendly reminder - to myself as much as anything - that sleep is pretty important for your health.