24 Hour (or more) shifts?

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milhouse

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Moderator SPLIT THREAD for discussion of 24+ hour shifts.

Taken from http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?p=74834

(Moderator Edit, Full post at above link)...now thankfully i dont smoke, but i dont think its fair because nurse's and other hospital staff are allowed to "clock out" and smoke. they dont have to worry about being on duty for 24 to 72 hours so it really sucks for the people that may work a 72 hour shift.
 
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milhouse said:
being on duty for 24 to 72 hours so it really sucks for the people that may work a 72 hour shift.
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Smoking and working 72 hour shifts? I can not imagine anything more unhealthy as far as risk factors for CAD and HTN to set a person up for a CVA or MI.

Hopefully the turnover is high for the people that fall into this group so they will move on before getting too sick to keep the insurance rates down for others.
 
VentMedic said:
Smoking and working 72 hour shifts? I can not imagine anything more unhealthy as far as risk factors for CAD and HTN to set a person up for a CVA or MI.

Hopefully the turnover is high for the people that fall into this group so they will move on before getting too sick to keep the insurance rates down for others.
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what is so wrong with working a 24-72 hour shift. why is everyone SOOOOOO against it. you guys act like its some bad thing
 
milhouse said:
what is so wrong with working a 24-72 hour shift. why is everyone SOOOOOO against it. you guys act like its some bad thing
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The theme of my post; if you are going to work long hours, take care of your body.

It is great if you have a VERY LOW call volume while working long shifts. However, when something happens that involves a medical error or MVC that could be deadly to a patient or cause you a lot of legal grief and possibly your certification, remember your words.

Recent news item:
http://www.ems1.com/news/332810/]http://www.ems1.com/news/332810

Texas paramedic didn't check pulse before declaring wreck victim dead
All four paramedics were in the 21st hour of a 24-hour shift that began at 7 a.m. the previous day, Hood said.
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i dont disagree with 24's at all. been doing it for years.

but i can tell you quite honestely, at the end of a ballbusting 24hr shift im tapped. my reaction time is slowed, my senses are dulled. im just not as sharp. i cant imagine working a 48hr shift and a 72hr shift is straight up and down insanity. any companyh that would let a person work 72hrs straight as a matter of regular business is just asking for barrels and barrels of trouble. i would seriously reccomend you review all the threads on here about personal liability insurance. your rolling the dice every time you do that.

unless of course your averaging one or two calls a day. then, why the hell not.get paid to play ps3 and sleep 18hrs a day, when can i start
 
Let's just say that there's a reason that physician residencies are limited to 80 hours a week now. Hint: It wasn't the unions asking for 10 hour days and a day off (based on the 8 work, 8 hour pleasure, 8 hour sleep/day argument)
 
well normally we only work 48 hour shifts but i had to cover for a guy. so i was there 72 fri sat sunday and went home monday mornig. now in those 3 days i think we did a dozen calls. but i also help out in the ER a lot last night i didnt go to bed till midnight because the ER was slammed well slammed for the size of ER that we have. it seemed they came in all at once.

plus i just work in the ER to stay busy and i have my share of taking a nap lol.
 
ok, fair enough on the 72hr shift. everybody has done some marathon stuff here and there(i can remember state emergency scenes that i was on station for 3 days), but you made it seem like its was a regular thing.

but i still cant believe that you do 48hr shifts. im not saying your lying, im saying i cant fathom that theres actually a company stupid enough to allow their employees to do that.
 
now the service i work for isnt a very busy service. now im looking at getting on with another service part time here in the next week or so and they only work a 24 hr shift and they stay pretty busy.

i dont think i would want to work a 48 or 72 and get an average of 12 calls a day. yea i would get burned out real fast. MEMS the service in the little rock AR area only works 12 hr shifts and they run an average of 14 calls in per truck in that area.

so as you can see the busier the service im pretty sure the less you work at a time. i wouldnt care to work a 96 or even a 120 hr shift if we only average 1 or 2 calls a day. but thats just me.
 
First - I split this thread off from the original discussion of smoking and EMS agencies going smoke free... because this is a different topic that deserves attention on its own!

My feelings on 24's is that they aren't great for you in any way, but they can be convenient.

When I come off of a 24, or a bad 12-hour overnight, I usually loose the next day to sleeping and getting back to "normal".

12 hour rotating shifts aren't great either, because our bodies get so confused they don't know what to do.

In EMS, we use lots of excuses to justify a 24 shift... but Employers need to have policies in place on what to do if someone has gone XX hours without sleep. Some services won't let providers drive home if they didn't get a decent amount of sleep on the shift... they may drive the provider home, or have him/her sleep at the station... but there is an option to keep people from killing themselves on the drive home.
 
KEVD18 said:
but i still cant believe that you do 48hr shifts. im not saying your lying, im saying i cant fathom that theres actually a company stupid enough to allow their employees to do that.
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You did notice that he said in 72 hours they ran a whopping 12 calls. Average that out and it's 4 a day. See why some places (and it's not entirely uncommon) work 48 hour shifts? Or sometimes longer in some areas.

So, what is your actual problem with 48 hour shifts, in particular (since that is what was being talked about here) in slow services? Can you articulate it, or just say that it's stupid to do? (there can be myriad problems, just curious if you can see what they are)
 
Just came off a 36 hour straight, with about 6 hours of sleep. We are investigating other alternatives. I like 24 but we have become so busy, and as more and more studies reveal sleep deprivation and studies are revealing that even those that do not make calls are still under distress and do not get REM sleep patterns.

I predict 24 hours shifts will soon be forgotten in the future. As more and more medics are having tragic events such as Vent described and many get killed on the way home (one tends to relax as they get closer to their home). Shame we have to work such hours and then crappy pay on top of it.

Sorry about the soap box, but alike many others in this profession I am feeling the public needs to annie up. They want educated person's then time to make sacrifices, sorry me or my partners life is more important than theirs. Especially when responding to a non-sense call. Seems if the public really want something, they will get it somehow.... it is just if it is really important.

When discussing with the public I work 24 hours shifts they are surprised but more so worried that we are taking care of patients after such a long shift... Really, it makes sense.

Time for the public to pay up. They want educated person's and quality of care, pay up. Make the sacrifice of that park, new sidewalks, increased taxes or an EMS that might save a life? Pay EMS where they do not have to have to work long shifts, and multiple jobs. They do other professions, why not us?

R/r 911
 
Personally, I HATE the 24 hour schedule. Fortunately, I'm not on it, but all of our full time crew is. I, like Rid, have seen study after study that says 24 hour shifts are bad news, however, we, as an industry, continue to accept 24 hrs on-duty and 48 hrs off-duty as normal.

I would also like to see the 24 hour shift be forgotten in the future, but I'm honestly not going to hold my breath on it.
 
I couldn't agree more with the safety concerns of a 24hr shift with little sleep. Unfortunately, for every shift I have where I get <4 hrs of sleep, I have four or five where I get about 8 hrs. I still like my 24s, they're a dream come true when it comes to working part time through school.

I see both sides of the argument, and I agree with Rid, 24hr shifts will probably begin to disappear when the public becomes more aware...ie. more accidents
 
Personaly i believe that the only reason why sometimes we have to do 24hr shifts is as result of inability of the employer to arange otherwise (It may also be that the remuniration offered is of such that it is not worth anyone's while to work).

At our branch, you may not work more than 12 hrs consequtive, this includes PVT jobs before your shift starts. Although i firmly believe that 12 hr shifts are the way to go, i know currently it is not possible due to many constraints on the employer as well as the number of qualified and available staff.

We are the only ones that can make it better...for ourselves.
 
Ops Paramedic said:
Personaly i believe that the only reason why sometimes we have to do 24hr shifts is as result of inability of the employer to arange otherwise (It may also be that the remuniration offered is of such that it is not worth anyone's while to work).

At our branch, you may not work more than 12 hrs consequtive, this includes PVT jobs before your shift starts. Although i firmly believe that 12 hr shifts are the way to go, i know currently it is not possible due to many constraints on the employer as well as the number of qualified and available staff.

We are the only ones that can make it better...for ourselves.
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Good points. I just recently brought this up to our Board of Directors. Although, it may appear each unit only responds to 6-8 calls per shift, the problem is the duration. I suggested that we start documenting total time of call duration, with documentation of in -between busy time as well (re-stocking, re-fueling, etc. ) Amazing, the time average over 144 minutes on some calls (not including in between call times). We cover a large area with few trucks..

The board will get their first report, it should be interesting to see what occurs. Much more informative than they run 8 calls per truck. As well, many of those calls are at after midnight, so sleep time is a valuable commodity.

Although, I do like 24 hour shifts, I do believe litigation of more and more mistakes are being made after being tired. With this sleep deprivation study, one might as well write out a check if there is a death to either the patient or medic.

I do think the public would be concerned if they really knew our working hours. Can one imagine if Troopers or LEO were on 24 hr shifts? What would the public say, if there were a shooting?

I just received a recruitment card from one of the larger hospitals for RN's. They now offer a "suite" in the hospital for nurses that have a distance to drive. Again, to ensure safety as a bonus?... hmm something to think about!

R/r 911
 
We have some bases(rural), that work 24hr shifts with a max on duty time of 36hrs. These bases usually don't do a lot if any calls. They have beds and medics can sleep at night but are of course "on call". If there are only a couple of calls during the day and you sleep at night, it's a nice shift. Just the radio calling other bases for calls to keep you awake. The problem comes from the 24 bases being put on a series of long haul transfers and being rode hard for 12 + hours. The dispatchers do this as they don't have a time limit to get them back for shift change every 12 hrs. Then they are tired and still have hours to go. There have been accidents while returning to base. No serious injuries yet but it is a question of time.

Our other bases work various shifts from 8 -14 hrs with a max on duty time of 24hrs. If you are busy you are wasted at the end of it. It would be nice to be paid enough so you don't have to do overtime which eventually will require a double shift. Night/day shifts are the worst, you never seem to sleep the day of the night shift. A person gets too tired to function reliably and safely dispite downtime between calls. Truckers can't do it. Why should we!
 
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