Question

Working in the Gastroenterology department, we have to take call at night from 5 pm to 2 am. We go in for emergency procedures only. Just a few weeks ago I was on-call and one of the doctors calls me at 1:50 am and of course I woke up and answered and she told me “We have a case in the ICU, patient is having an upper GI bleed.” We go in to scope the patient and unfortunately we couldn’t find the source of the bleed, doctor said it was up higher and that the ENT doctor had to be called in. So by the time we were done with the procedure it was already close to 4 am and we have to go in to work at 8 am, which is pretty much in 4 hours. By the time I was in bed, I basically will only sleep for 1 hour because I have to get all 3 kids ready and drop them off at Grandma’s house. My PICOT question will be “Does being sleep deprived because of being on-call put your patients at risk?”

Answer 1

Solution:

P-Nurses in the GI department

I-Giving the nurses who get called in in the middle of the night a day off to be able to get enough sleep and rest

C-Nurses who get a full nights rest in between shifts

O- Given at least half a day off in the morning to be able to rest

T-Can’t really measure this one, should just be enforced.

Stanojevic et.al (2016), article is very relevant to my issue of being sleep deprived and making medical errors while putting patients at risk. If I am not 100% rested, I can easily make a mistake in the room and give the wrong medication or wrong dosage. This can be a deadly situation to put any nurse in. I decided to call in sick the morning I was suppose to come in at 8 am because I just couldn’t function with 1-2 hours of sleep. I didn’t want to put my patients at risk because of me.

Reference:

STANOJEVIĆ, Č., SIMIĆ, S., & MILUTINOVIĆ, D. (2016). HEALTH EFFECTS OF SLEEP DEPRIVATION ON NURSES WORKING SHIFTS. MedicinskiPregled / Medical Review, 69(5/6), 183-188. doi:10.2298/MPNS1606183S