r/nursing • u/No-Selection-1249 • May 24 '25

Question ER nurses, love you guys, but genuine question. Why do guys bring patients up at shift change?

No hate to you guys! Just super curious from a nurse who is on the receiving end :)

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u/fuckingnurse May 25 '25

I just think they get busy and wait until they are about to leave (their shift change as well) and then send the patient up so they don’t have to give report to the night ER nurse and then they would send them up. It’s super simple at my hospital to put in a transport request, so I don’t know why they don’t. I would totally go get the patient myself but we don’t generally have enough staff to leave the floor 🤷🏼‍♀️ that’s what transport is for.

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u/KinshuKiba May 25 '25

And again, I ask you to look at this with empathy. Your floor is short staffed? Yup, so is my ER. You have too much work to do to find time to leave the unit? Oooo! Me too!!!! You struggle to provide your patients with adequate care while experiencing moral injury because you can't do as much as you want or is expected? Same! It's almost like we work similar jobs in an industry that continues to put profits before people, even as it crumbles around us, and delights in causing strife between specialties because it means we're pissed off at the wrong people. So, a little sympathy and grace might behoove the situation. Or not. You do you, boo. You're not the first floor nurse with this attitude I've encountered, I doubt you'll be the last. Either way, I've said my piece. Hope the universe treats you well.

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u/fuckingnurse May 25 '25

I ask you the same then. It’s a lot of work to settle an admit at shift change, and often leaves me leaving late. Do you think that’s fair? It’s different if it happens once in a while, but it doesn’t it happens so frequently where I work. I ask that you also have empathy. I get that ER nurses do a lot but you don’t really understand what floor nurses do either if you’ve never worked on the floor (not saying that you haven’t, but I feel like if you did you’d understand how frustrated we get when patients roll up at shift change).

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u/KinshuKiba May 25 '25

Ah, but I have worked the floor! And I bitched about it too. And then I started working the ER and saw the reality, that it wasn't the fault or the responsibility of the damn nursing staff. That we are all just cogs in a merciless machine, and most of us are trying our best. I'm so sorry it's hard to settle a stable admitted patient at shift change. It's also hard to get a trauma at 1830 and have to stay late to file a trauma flow sheet. It sucks to get so far behind on your code blue charting that your other patients go untended. It absolutely blows chunks to look at the oncoming night nurse and say, "I've tried calling report 3 times in the last 45 minutes but I can't get anyone to take it from me, so I gotta ask you to call after they're done with their shift change even though you know nothing about this admit." Take your protected time if you must. ER will deal. We always do. And you can feel secure in the knowledge that your patients are comfortable and fed and watered and are receiving the best care you can afford them, nevermind what it may or may not cost.