A Day in My Life: Night Shift on the Med-Surg Floor
People imagine night shift is quiet. Sometimes it is. Mostly it's the same work as day shift with half the staff and twice the coffee. After 25 years, I've made peace with nights — but only because I've built routines around them.
The evening before
16:30 — I wake up from my day sleep (NICETOWN blackout curtains, my Manta Sleep mask, fan running — my whole day-sleeping setup is here). First coffee while the rest of the street is thinking about dinner.
18:15 — I eat a real dinner before leaving home. Rookie mistake I made for years: going in hungry and living off vending machines until 3 AM.
18:40 — Getting dressed is a system: Evirelle compression socks first (sitting down, before any swelling starts), scrubs, then the HOKA Bondi SRs. The bag is packed the night before — here's what's in it.
The shift
19:00 — Handover. I write everything down, even after 25 years. Memory is not a system.
21:30 — Evening meds done, first moment to sit. This is when I feel whether the sock-and-shoe combo is working. On good days, my legs are quiet. On bad days, they're already complaining — and there are still ten hours to go.
00:00 — "Lunch." Eating a packed meal at midnight never stops being strange. The emergency chocolate bar stays sealed unless the night earns it.
02:00 — The strange, still hours. Charting, rounds, the occasional emergency. This is when I put on my Uvex Skyper blue-light glasses for the last hours — morning sun is the enemy of day sleep, and the orange lenses help me wind down before the drive home.
05:00 — The floor starts waking up. Morning meds, prep for the day team, and the last push when your feet remind you exactly how many hours they've carried you.
Getting home
07:30 — Handover, home, sunglasses on for the drive, blackout curtains, Manta mask, phone in the other room. Day sleeping is a skill — my full setup is here.
It's a hard job. It's also the best one I know. And most of what makes it survivable isn't heroic — it's boring, repeatable routines and the right gear on your body for twelve hours straight.
— Emma
