Nurse Reflective Account

Introduction and Setting

For the last 3 years I have worked in an acute care hospital, on the night-shift as a nurse in the labor and delivery unit. This is a 16 room labor and delivery bed unit that also houses 4 additional triage bays, a full time nursery, and a fully functional operating room This labor and delivery department runs as a 24hour, 7day a week unit with each nurse having to take at least 16 hours a month of call on days, evenings, or weekends. This is a very fast-paced unit, which carries a heavy load of responsibility and stress. Labor is unpredictable with that you never know what your patient load may be from day to day. This is an area that requires knowledgeable and multi certified/trained nurses that are always on their toes and have the ability to adapt and react to emergencies without hesitation. This department serves for 7 local obstetricians that service numerous obstetric patients. The unit runs off a weekly schedule book that is filled with routine inductions, scheduled c-sections, on top of all the daily triage patients, that can soon turn into labor admissions. The nurses on this unit are

The charge nurses work underneath the nurse manager, and the staff nurses who work under the charge nurses. The daily and nightly charge nurse is who assign each staff nurse their role for their shift. Nurses on this unit are expected to serve in many different roles. Every nurse on this labor unit is well versed and servers and is able to serve in the role as a labor and delivery nurse, a triage nurse, nursery nurse, or as a postpartum nurse. Your night shift nurses are also trained and expected to scrub a c-section at any time one occurs within their 7p-7a shift. Each nurse on this unit is also in charge of admitting their own patients and calling the assigned doctor with report of each patient’s status or