Surprising Lessons I Learned Working Nights in a Hospital

I worked as a float pool CNA exclusively on the night shift at a hospital for eight months in 2018. It was a very eye-opening experience for me.

The medical field has always been my favorite place to work. I love learning about the body, I enjoy helping people, and I find all of the medical jargon terribly interesting. So when I was a senior in high school, I enrolled in a course, through the local technical college, to become a Certified Nursing Assistant, or CNA. These people are the ones who typically work in assisted living or long-term care facilities, taking vital signs, changing briefs, feeding patients and residents, assisting with ADL’s (activities of daily life), toileting, showering, talking, listening, and basically fulfilling all of the basic needs under their care, besides medication management. That’s an RN’s job. CNA’s are often glamorously referred to as “professional butt-wipers” because honestly, a big part of the job is caring for and cleaning up after people who struggle to control their bowels and have to wear briefs. We clean up a lot of poop. Daily.

I have worked in both an assisted living and a hospital setting as a CNA. When I started work at the hospital, I thought I was pretty savvy and that I wouldn’t really need to learn anything new. I was wrong. Here are five surprising lessons I learned while working nights in a hospital, that I think can apply to most situations in life.

NO MATTER HOW HARD OR TOXIC A SHIFT IS, IT WILL END

Sometimes nights are just hard. Sometimes days are just hard. Sometimes there is literally poop on your shoes and vomit in your hair. But you know what always got me through those hard, toxic, stressful, tear-filled shifts? I knew that they would eventually end. I knew that 6:00 am would arrive and a fresh set of nurses and aides would arrive at the hospital and I would just have to give report and then I could go home to shower and sleep.

This same mentality is what got me through labor and delivery, it’s what gets me through long days or nights with Calvin, through car rides without air conditioning, and through stressful weeks at home. Every storm eventually ends.

EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE OR HAVE THE SAME CULTURE, PEOPLE CAN TELL IF YOU GENUINELY CARE ABOUT THEM

I don’t speak more than two words of Spanish, French, American Sign Language, or any other non-English language. Sometimes this made taking care of people a little more challenging. It required using a translator, large hand gestures, or images. But even though it was often difficult to communicate that I needed them to hold still and relax so I could take their blood pressure, it almost never took any words to communicate that I cared about them and wanted them to feel safe and cared for.

THE EXTRA EFFORT IT TAKES TO BE KIND AND GENTLE IS WORTH IT

I don’t know if you have ever been disturbed every four hours, around the clock by a stranger to have your vitals taken, but it is irritating. Now imagine you have two options for those night disturbances. First, you can be sleeping in an uncomfortable hospital bed while injured or ill, have someone widely open the door, flip on the light, greet you in a bright voice, take your vitals, turn the lights back off, and then leave. Second, you can be sleeping in an uncomfortable hospital bed while injured or ill, have someone quietly open the door and slip inside, turn on the low sink light, greet you quietly, and take your vitals as quickly and gently as possible, turn the lights back off, and then leave. Which would you choose?

People staying in a hospital are already having a bad day (a common exception being those on the postpartum floor) so doing what you can to not make that day worse can go a very long way.

TAKING FIVE MINUTES TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF CAN CHANGE AN ENTIRE 12 HOUR SHIFT

I tried to make it a point during my night shifts to take a moment to myself. I would reapply deodorant, using a baby wipe on my face and neck, brush my teeth, drop contact solution in my eyes, and put on a pair of clean socks (trust me, it helps) and then go back out into the fray.

On the nights when I didn’t manage to squeeze this little routine in, I noticed a huge difference. Even if the night was fairly routine and boring, taking a few minutes to reset and freshen up in the middle of the night was extremely helpful.

WHEN YOU MESS UP (AND YOU WILL) ADMIT YOUR MISTAKE AND ASK FOR HELP TO FIX IT

This is the hardest thing for a lot of people to learn. It’s easy to want to seem competent and perfect at work, especially when you’re fairly new at your job. But covering up mistakes can be dangerous in health care. Admitting your mistakes and getting help from someone who knows more than you is very important. Not only does it protect those you are caring for, but it shows you are a good employee.

I learned an amazing amount about myself while I was working nights at the hospital. I discovered that I am a morning person (not a night owl like I’d always thought), I love chocolate milk, and I even changed my college major. Though I am very grateful to no longer be working in that position, I am still glad that I was a night shift float pool CNA for eight months.