Safety Naps?

[stcommodore]

Work 2 ten hour days, (08-1800) then 2 fourteen hour nights (1800-0800). My unit is in the downtown section of the city and we typically to 8-10 calls during the day and 14-18 calls at night. No sleep, no safety naps. 24 hour or double shifts are not permitted.

[mobey]

The ones that go from soft to loud.

We just switched to those recently and I gotta tell ya, I love em!

First tone wakes you up..... just enough to realize there is a noise in the room, second tone, you realize it is the radio and there is a call, third tone, You KNOW there is a call and you quickly get annoyed with the radio.

Out of a dead sleep I can usually turn the radio down before the third tone saving that "pop your eyes open, jump out of bed, holy crap" moment before you realize it is just a call and not an air raid!

[Dustdevil]

That's why I won't work somewhere where they try to tell you when you can or can't sleep or watch TV!

I remember discussing this here at least once in the last couple years, but it certainly bears repeating.

I agree with that policy in EMS. We are not firemonkeys. We do not usually station in public facilities that are popular public destinations for tourists and direction seekers. And when we work, we have to function on a higher level than simple adrenaline and testosterone provide. We need to be more than rested. We need to be relaxed. Stress causes mistakes. Mistakes cost lives. Consequently, unless there is meaningful and necessary work to be done, there is no intelligent reason for following this stupid firemonkey "tradition" just because it's the way they've always done it. In fact, that applies to 24 hour shifts altogether, but that's for a different thread. Managers who insist on this are idiots, plain and simple. They lack the intelligence, leadership quality, and imagination both to understand the problem, and to find a reasonable solution. I too would not work for them.

But when there are no rules whatsoever, it creates a whole new set of problems that have to be regulated. I discovered this the hard way at one service. When I got there, I thought it was awesome that there were no sleep rules. It was a large station with two semi-private bunk rooms (two crews), a dayroom, and a rec room. Plenty of places to go and get comfortable or entertain yourself without being on top of each other. Problem is, the lack of any sleep restrictions became a serious problem. About half of the employees took that as a licence to stay out and get no sleep the night before their shift, knowing they could go to bed when they got to work. People were constantly showing up in the morning totally wiped out from the night before, neglecting or half-arsing their chores -- including equipment checks and maintenance -- and having a bad attitude through the busy part of the day because they wanted to be sleeping. What I found to be an even bigger problem was that it created serious friction between the crews. The off-going crew may have been up on runs all night long, and therefore trying to catch an extra hour or two of sleep before getting up to drive home. Normally, this shouldn't be a problem. But with "no rules", the on-coming crew feels like they are entitled to the bunks as soon as they hit the station, so they make it as inhospitable as possible for the off-going crew trying to sleep. For that reason, I think that prohibiting sleeping before 1000 or 1200 is not only good policy, but almost a necessity.

[rock_shoes]

We don't have any rules about sleeping during slow parts of the shift. It all comes down to respect. Respect for ones fellow co-workers and respect for the profession. Our station duties are done and the in-coming crew is respectful of the outgoing crew when they may have been busy their entire shift. What's needed is professionalism not rules.

[Arizonaffcep]

The 10-12 no sleep thing is fine with me...I'm a fan of the "Food Coma" (post lunch) sleep!

[PeachyMedic]

I work at a rural service we run 2 ambulances and a rescue truck. The problem here lately is on my shift we are slow during the day and run all night or run all day and night. Our standard operating guidelines state we are not allowed to go to sleep until after 4 pm due to the billing office located in the front of our station. I think this is very unreasonable we don't get to pick when our calls come in so we should be able to sleep when we can!

[mburrill2001]

I work on a critical care ambulance in the metro Boston area. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has just recently posted regulations covering this level of care. They require camts (Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Services, www.camts.org) certification to operate at this level.

Per camts, no critical care personnel should be working more than 12 hours in a row. You cannot think critically for that amount of time. We currently are allowed 16 hr. shifts, but they are disappearing.

According to a study by one of the air medical journals (can't find the citation), it takes about 30 minutes to wake fully from sleep, so they recommend removal of all sleeping quarters. This is basically aimed at pilots (and, by extension, drivers), but critical thinking is critical thinking.

The above paragraphs are vastly oversimplified, both the camts requirements and the journal article run for multiple pages, are evidence-based and are very persuasive.

I also think that a nap at work is beneficial, but at least where I work the long shift and the afternoon nap are going or gone.

[Dustdevil]

Our standard operating guidelines state we are not allowed to go to sleep until after 4 pm due to the billing office located in the front of our station. I think this is very unreasonable we don't get to pick when our calls come in so we should be able to sleep when we can!

That's like saying you can't take your clothes off to take a shower because someone in the living room might see you. It's nonsense. Nobody needs to go through your bunk room to see a billing clerk. And I don't see how you being awake helps the billing people do their jobs, so wtf?

This is just more ignorant, monkey-see management by ignorant, monkey-do managers who think that EMS should be modelled after the fire service. Problem is, I've also worked systems where, if we got less stringent rules than the firemonkeys, they'd whine like little beeyotches about it, despite the fact that they made twice as much money. Fags. But for some reason, managers often mistakenly think that dressing and sleeping like the fire service will give us the respect of the fire service. Never happen. And it's incredibly naive to even think so.

[Don1977]

My company have 8 and 12 hour shifts, I feel there is no reason for a nap during these times, Why would you need one???????

[dahlio]

I'm in all favor of the nap. I mean, EMS stands for Earn Money Sleeping :wink:

All joking aside, I believe that you've gotta do what you gotta do. I understand running 10-12 jobs in a 12 hour shift. Going home, getting 5 hours sleep when all is said and done, and doing another 12 hours where your call volume is 2-4. I have no problem with people sleeping as long as they can wake up promptly, and be ready to move. We've all had the days where you've had 3-4 hours of sleep, and run 12 in 12 hours. As long as you're able to maintain an excellent level of care, and serve no negligence, then I find no problem with this practice.

The current place I work for now has 12 hour shifts, with a maximum 18 hours (hospital policy). Sleeping on the job is a fireable offense (hospital policy as well), but something that's completely overlooked. If everything gets done (Truck checked, daily chores done) and your call volume is down, then it's perfectly acceptable to take a nap. Obviously if you haven't had a job all day, and your truck is a mess on the outside, and you have decent weather, your expected to clean the truck and preform similar chores.

A 20 minute nap can go a long way sometimes. My two cents.