ABSTRACT
Our team rose at five a.m. each day so that we could make it to the hospital well before the morning shift change at seven a.m. Once there, we shadowed nurses for three to four hours while they administered medications to patients, then drove back to the hotel to sleep, and returned again in the evening to continue our research with the night shift at seven p.m. After a week of sleeping in shifts and shadowing nurses (who move much faster through the halls of a hospital unit than you can possibly imagine), we were numb with exhaustion. Our drive to and from the hospital became a silent, trance inducing routine—the car stereo playing barely audible NPR before dawn and classical music to and from the night shift. Or was it the other way around? Who can say? It was all a blur, and we were beginning to understand how challenging, and physically draining, nursing shifts can be.
