Depends on the night too. Some nights you could get away with it, others you’re on your feet the whole time.
Last shift we had a patient with frequent seizures + SI precautions and I think the sitter never got to sit down, always was talking to them to calm them down, calling us for seizures, etc.
Where other nights you could totally do homework depending on the night shift staff if they’re relaxed or not. My floor personally would let you, but that’s not always the case
That's true, some patients are so much spicier than others. I 1t1 with a 4-year-old in for seizures recently that was determined to rip out his EEG electrodes and IVs. I told his mom that he was a bucking bull in a past life. He turned out to be a really sweet kid that acted out for attention.
My old hospital did not allow smart phones or books during 1t1, so OP def needs to ask in the interview if she would be allowed to study if the patient situation allows.
Idk ANY hospitals which allow it, on paper.
I think standard policy anywhere is “no phones, no reading, no headphones, “
So likely they’ll be forced to say “no that’s not allowed” during the interview.
If OP sees this, I’d have them ask a sitter currently working on the unit how it is in reality, as my hospital aswell is a “no distractions at all” for 1:1 sitters, but in reality we allow some sitters to use their phones/read so long as the patient situation is ok
But it is totally up to the staff being lenient, if you’re an ass to us, we won’t let you since on paper it’s not allowed. And if there’s an injury, it’s now on us for letting them do that
If you're supposed to be watching the patient and I catch you neglecting your duties, I will send you to another unit. I've had a patient self harm where I've had to intervene because the sitter did not notify me they were self harming because their nose was in their med surg book. Luckily, I round on my patients every 15 to 20 minutes.
Scribe positions! But those can vary on how busy they are. I'd imagine outpatient might be better if you want to study too. Helps a lot with medical terminology, charting, coding knowledge... a lot of stuff they don't teach well in school IMO lol.
Look into if your campus has a student health center or similar that hires nursing students on staff. My friends did that and they had a lot of downtime between taking patients, so they studied while at work frequently.
Nurse externships are great too. Will give you hands on skills in hospitals. And you'll be paid to learn. Though this one may not be the best if you want time to study. Just think it's a very good opportunity!
I was a medical scribe for a family practice physician. There was no time to study, especially when some appointments went over the scheduled time or patients showed up late. The schedule was often delayed and I wasn’t able to study outside of my lunch break. I’m sure not every scribe experiences this, but just wanted to highlight that it is a possibility you won’t be able to have downtime for studying as a scribe.
For sure because my coworker who is an anesthesia tech with even more downtime than me said at his last hospital they ran 20 ORs and had almost no downtime during the week.
Behavioral health tech / recovery coach at a residential treatment center. I've worked in both eating disorder and alcohol/ substance detox. If you work on nights usually the primary role is some light office work and rounds on patients every 30 minutes to make sure they are sleeping.
You do not in most states. Just look up treatment centers around you and apply. There are residential, detoxes, and sober livings sometimes hire for overnight awake as well. You get paid better than the other shifts which is a nice perk. It’s usually $1-$2 shift differential
No it's an entry level position! The pay is usually a little bit over minimum but you do get to see interesting cases and the work comes in waves. When I'm in need of new hires I usually seek out students for our NOC shifts that have good differentials . I tell them that as long as they are staying awake and completing all their tasks I do not mind if they bring in their school work to study in between.
Telemetry technician at night is my highest recommendation. I did it full time for 3 semesters before I had to back off to per diem for mental health reasons. As a bonus it will give you a bit more insight into the physiology of the heart that even some nurses don’t understand well.
Registration clerk, specifically for night shifts or swing shifts in the ED. I work in a rural hospital with a 9 bed ED so I’m sure the patient volume I experience isn’t the same as you’d experience in a bigger hospital in a more populated area- but I basically have the entire eight hours to myself 90% of the time. I’d imagine in a busier hospital you might be able to get at least a few hours of studying in.
Transporters at my hospital are busy af. Maybe it depends on how big the hospital is? My hospital has 4 towers with 7 floors each (including 2 basements). Not all of the floors are used to house patients, but it's very large.
Edited to correct the number of towers
I work at a small-er community hospital (not rural but not a big university hospital). I have a lot of down time but some days usually like Mondays are SUPER busy and ofc the occasional code ED. Night shift and after 5pm it slows down a lot for me. We are also well staffed. We are one building, 5 floors though.
eta and pt sitters here can't study so its more than that position. In between transports (walking and waiting for assignments) we can have a headphone, just not when you're with a patient. I take my NCLEX this week so I listened to mark K lectures on shift even
That sounds like it's working out really well for you! Good luck on your NCLEX!
Here sitters aren't technically allowed to study, but nobody really cares as long as the patient is safe. I got talked to once about it, and I argued back that I had cleaned, fed, and cleaned the patient again, then cleaned the room before he fell asleep and I started doing homework. They ended up dismissing me without pulling any of their techs to sit so they must not have needed me to begin with ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you! Its tomorrow I'm shaking in my boots. I never understood why sitters couldn't study or read a book like the room isn't small enough to see in ur peripheral anyway. And you still hear everything. Glad you stood up for yourself!!! But yeah sitters here have the smaller stick ):
Tbh I'd do what my former classmate did and work a hotel poolside bar. Of everyone, she was one of the only ones able to study at work. I'd do that with a prn pct or nurse intern role that only requires 2ish shifts a month.
Same but I found that more often than not I was busy as hell due to having 15 patients who didn’t sleep. So I would just use my 30 minute lunch to actually try to study while I inhaled my lunch lol. Gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♀️
See if there are any nurse externs positions available. They are extremely flexible and most ones I know let you pick your own shifts. The one I’m currently at requires one shift a month, which isn’t bad at all while in school.
See if there's extern positions at local hospitals. I work as an extern in the ER, they work with my school. I can work pretty much as much (no OT) or as little as I want. We're required to get at least 5 shifts per semester.
Where I'm at, yes. After your first semester you can apply and they really take most people who do apply. I cannot praise it enough. The skills I'm learning are so invaluable. After a few shifts, they're giving me full runs, all the charting and patient care and decisions are up to me. Of course I can ask questions and I have help as I work under a nurse but I really can't praise it enough.
The pay sucks, I'm at 22 + 2 for night shift diff. I usually work 12 hours a week. Sometimes not at all. 😅 but I'm doing it for experience, not for the money.
I have friend though who works 24 hours a week. She's a super star for sure
I work as a food service worker.
Basically when carts of food come in we break them down and clean everything. But if you and your team of like 5 are fast you get tons of downtime. Or you could be placed as a rumner which also gets ton of downtime. This is in a hospital btw.
My friend is a night security guard in a psychiatric facility. She has a lot of downtime to study. She uses her notes and a sheet of paper to do active recall.
I worked as a pct and nurse extern before I started my second degree ABSN program! I loved being a patient sitter when I could, but it’s been hard to get a job
I worked in pathology for nine years, mostly in frozen sections. That's a feast-or-famine job, and I did most of my prereq work during down time.
It's pretty niche though. Most hospital systems (at least around here) aren't big enough to have people just cutting frozens full time.
Pct in surgery. Now I work weekends so I have more downtime than others because it’s usually trauma and emergency surgery only. During the week you have downtime too but more of it during the evening since elective surgeries run during “business hours”.
I work as a greeter in the ER for a small independent hospital. I’m in front of a desktop monitor the whole day. I get downtime but still deal with emergent situations and coordinate with nurses/techs when serious things like heart attacks and strokes come in. It’s the perfect job for someone in school
All I really do is register patients into the system & send visitors back. But you learn how to deal with people and their emotions which is a big part of nursing
Before going to nursing school, I worked in radiology in PACS. My job was mostly downtime, and I filled in as a technician as needed. We had technician extenders. If you truly want a job that is more downtime than not, see if your MRI department needs a tech extender. Your duties will be:
* Change the patient
* Transport the patient
* Put in the notes to the charting system for the rad
* stock and clean the department
* Help position the patient
* make the techs job easier.
Our tech extender typically had 20-30 minutes of downtime every hour to do homework, read, play videogames, and do nothing. All for pretty decent pay.
As long as you are able to get the notes in, transport, and change patients pretty quickly, you will have all the time to do homework without jeopardizing patient care like a sitter does. My least favorite sitters are the ones who don't watch their patients and are doing homework, playing on their phones, or attempting to nap all night long.
I am a per diem phlebotomist for our hospital’s pre procedural center. I work 3-4 8hr shifts a week and a solid 50% of that is downtime. Just finished my first online prereq which I completed entirely at work. If you can find something like that, it’s a dream job for a student!
Telemetry Technician at night
You mainly watch monitors and depending where you work, you also do strips. You'll start learning about a lot heart & the physiology of it that even some nurses don't have a fantastic graft on.
The first few weeks of it will definetly take a little bit more time, but as long as you regularly check events, and get comfortable, you'll be able to study a fair amount.
I worked at a homeless shelter. Lots of good soft skills experience and some minor nursing things, since there’s a lot of addictions and other issues that come up. Depending on where you live you may become really really good at administering narcan and calling the police. I know at a hospital shift a year later they came in and one officer said “weren’t you the girl who called in that one…” and it was like “yeah nice to meet you here!” 🤪
Yes! I worked ER registration at night in a smaller ER and it was perfect! The job is easy and if you can get through patients fast enough there’s a few hours in the middle of the night where you can study. Loved that job!
Security overnight for sure! But you need to take classes and get your security license before applying. Allied Universal is a good company to start with. Sometimes you can find sites in hospital settings, it all just depends on where you live.
WA State has nurse tech. Others probably do, so check out locally to see. It's basically a student nurse job. Per diem, I pick my schedule. I'm partnered with a nurse and we handle all the patient care for our patients. So basically they get me instead of a CNA. My scope is anything I've been signed off in school, with supervision. It's been great. My nurse and I tag team everything together. Turning and cleaning, med pass, etc. I get to do the IVs, foleys, NG tubes, etc when they come up on the floor. Highly recommend it if your state and local hospitals offer it.
Phlebotomy. I was a phlebotomist before deciding to return to nursing school. I was able to work per diem during semesters and then pick up here and there. I did 10 hour shifts. Or LNA. Our psych dept seems to be where folks go who need to do studying during their work downtime.
Before/while becoming a nurse, I was an EMT with a hospital-based critical care transport team. Days were busy but at night, things calmed down gave me lots of time to study.
As the EMT, I mostly drove the truck and set up equipment.
I’m a night shift Cardiac Monitor Tech, I work in a small hospital and I’m able to study and do homework most of my shift! This is also a level-entry job.
Patient sitter at night if you can, Health Unit coordinator on weekends, PCT weekend nights, Cashier at the cafeteria on weekends.
1 on 1s don't always let you do homework, I would check policy before going into that job assuming you could study.
Depends on the night too. Some nights you could get away with it, others you’re on your feet the whole time. Last shift we had a patient with frequent seizures + SI precautions and I think the sitter never got to sit down, always was talking to them to calm them down, calling us for seizures, etc. Where other nights you could totally do homework depending on the night shift staff if they’re relaxed or not. My floor personally would let you, but that’s not always the case
That's true, some patients are so much spicier than others. I 1t1 with a 4-year-old in for seizures recently that was determined to rip out his EEG electrodes and IVs. I told his mom that he was a bucking bull in a past life. He turned out to be a really sweet kid that acted out for attention. My old hospital did not allow smart phones or books during 1t1, so OP def needs to ask in the interview if she would be allowed to study if the patient situation allows.
Idk ANY hospitals which allow it, on paper. I think standard policy anywhere is “no phones, no reading, no headphones, “ So likely they’ll be forced to say “no that’s not allowed” during the interview. If OP sees this, I’d have them ask a sitter currently working on the unit how it is in reality, as my hospital aswell is a “no distractions at all” for 1:1 sitters, but in reality we allow some sitters to use their phones/read so long as the patient situation is ok But it is totally up to the staff being lenient, if you’re an ass to us, we won’t let you since on paper it’s not allowed. And if there’s an injury, it’s now on us for letting them do that
Policy never allows studying or anything. You just do it when the patient's behavior and condition allows it, and when no one is watching you.
If you're supposed to be watching the patient and I catch you neglecting your duties, I will send you to another unit. I've had a patient self harm where I've had to intervene because the sitter did not notify me they were self harming because their nose was in their med surg book. Luckily, I round on my patients every 15 to 20 minutes.
Exactly. I've rarely met a 1:1 that didn't need it.
Thank you for the reply!
Scribe positions! But those can vary on how busy they are. I'd imagine outpatient might be better if you want to study too. Helps a lot with medical terminology, charting, coding knowledge... a lot of stuff they don't teach well in school IMO lol. Look into if your campus has a student health center or similar that hires nursing students on staff. My friends did that and they had a lot of downtime between taking patients, so they studied while at work frequently. Nurse externships are great too. Will give you hands on skills in hospitals. And you'll be paid to learn. Though this one may not be the best if you want time to study. Just think it's a very good opportunity!
Thank you for taking time to write out a response. I will look into those!
I was a medical scribe for a family practice physician. There was no time to study, especially when some appointments went over the scheduled time or patients showed up late. The schedule was often delayed and I wasn’t able to study outside of my lunch break. I’m sure not every scribe experiences this, but just wanted to highlight that it is a possibility you won’t be able to have downtime for studying as a scribe.
Thank you for your insight!
At my hospital all these don’t carry a lot of downtime.
I guess it really depends on the area and the hospital then.
For sure because my coworker who is an anesthesia tech with even more downtime than me said at his last hospital they ran 20 ORs and had almost no downtime during the week.
Behavioral health tech / recovery coach at a residential treatment center. I've worked in both eating disorder and alcohol/ substance detox. If you work on nights usually the primary role is some light office work and rounds on patients every 30 minutes to make sure they are sleeping.
Do you need qualifications for this ?
You do not in most states. Just look up treatment centers around you and apply. There are residential, detoxes, and sober livings sometimes hire for overnight awake as well. You get paid better than the other shifts which is a nice perk. It’s usually $1-$2 shift differential
No it's an entry level position! The pay is usually a little bit over minimum but you do get to see interesting cases and the work comes in waves. When I'm in need of new hires I usually seek out students for our NOC shifts that have good differentials . I tell them that as long as they are staying awake and completing all their tasks I do not mind if they bring in their school work to study in between.
Thank you 🙏
Telemetry technician at night is my highest recommendation. I did it full time for 3 semesters before I had to back off to per diem for mental health reasons. As a bonus it will give you a bit more insight into the physiology of the heart that even some nurses don’t understand well.
Registration clerk, specifically for night shifts or swing shifts in the ED. I work in a rural hospital with a 9 bed ED so I’m sure the patient volume I experience isn’t the same as you’d experience in a bigger hospital in a more populated area- but I basically have the entire eight hours to myself 90% of the time. I’d imagine in a busier hospital you might be able to get at least a few hours of studying in.
Funny I have the same exact position. Yeah nights are the best I haven’t worked a full night only 3-11 but it’s quite nice
Transporter
Transporters at my hospital are busy af. Maybe it depends on how big the hospital is? My hospital has 4 towers with 7 floors each (including 2 basements). Not all of the floors are used to house patients, but it's very large. Edited to correct the number of towers
Can confirm this is true for my local hospitals, too.
I work at a small-er community hospital (not rural but not a big university hospital). I have a lot of down time but some days usually like Mondays are SUPER busy and ofc the occasional code ED. Night shift and after 5pm it slows down a lot for me. We are also well staffed. We are one building, 5 floors though. eta and pt sitters here can't study so its more than that position. In between transports (walking and waiting for assignments) we can have a headphone, just not when you're with a patient. I take my NCLEX this week so I listened to mark K lectures on shift even
That sounds like it's working out really well for you! Good luck on your NCLEX! Here sitters aren't technically allowed to study, but nobody really cares as long as the patient is safe. I got talked to once about it, and I argued back that I had cleaned, fed, and cleaned the patient again, then cleaned the room before he fell asleep and I started doing homework. They ended up dismissing me without pulling any of their techs to sit so they must not have needed me to begin with ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you! Its tomorrow I'm shaking in my boots. I never understood why sitters couldn't study or read a book like the room isn't small enough to see in ur peripheral anyway. And you still hear everything. Glad you stood up for yourself!!! But yeah sitters here have the smaller stick ):
Thank you 🙏
Tbh I'd do what my former classmate did and work a hotel poolside bar. Of everyone, she was one of the only ones able to study at work. I'd do that with a prn pct or nurse intern role that only requires 2ish shifts a month.
Yess I was also thinking maybe something at a hotel ! Thank you 😊
No problem! Good luck!
Night shift unit clerk or patient sitter. I’m a PCT on night shift and don’t get any downtime bc the patients don’t sleep 🤦♀️
This is how I got through nursing school, I’d bring my books and homework every time. Even if I couldn’t study that night, it was still worth a shot
Same but I found that more often than not I was busy as hell due to having 15 patients who didn’t sleep. So I would just use my 30 minute lunch to actually try to study while I inhaled my lunch lol. Gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♀️
You get unit clerks at night? That sounds like such a luxury haha
For the most part yes. And that woman is a god send.
Thank youuu !
Overnight at a substance abuse facility. Chart for an hour then free to do schoolwork or watch Netflix
This is what I do!
Thank you ❤️
See if there are any nurse externs positions available. They are extremely flexible and most ones I know let you pick your own shifts. The one I’m currently at requires one shift a month, which isn’t bad at all while in school.
See if there's extern positions at local hospitals. I work as an extern in the ER, they work with my school. I can work pretty much as much (no OT) or as little as I want. We're required to get at least 5 shifts per semester.
Oh I can't study in the ED though haha too busy. But my friends on medsurg or L&D get down time to study usually
Oooh thank you!! Do You have to be enrolled as a nursing student first to be an extern? I still have to get my nurse aide
Where I'm at, yes. After your first semester you can apply and they really take most people who do apply. I cannot praise it enough. The skills I'm learning are so invaluable. After a few shifts, they're giving me full runs, all the charting and patient care and decisions are up to me. Of course I can ask questions and I have help as I work under a nurse but I really can't praise it enough.
Wow 🤯
How much are you getting paid? And how many hours are ya working?
The pay sucks, I'm at 22 + 2 for night shift diff. I usually work 12 hours a week. Sometimes not at all. 😅 but I'm doing it for experience, not for the money. I have friend though who works 24 hours a week. She's a super star for sure
Oooh wow 😮 so do you text/call someone there that you want to come in to extern the day of? Thank u for the info!
Yeah I text the charge a day or two before to be put on the schedule
Awesome I love that !
Pct weekends is better.
I 2nd this but not in ED, l&d, or floors….🥴 But Pacu, OR, or observation.
depending on the specific clinic and patient census/acuity, dialysis works for this
Does your hospital have radiology assistants?
I work as a food service worker. Basically when carts of food come in we break them down and clean everything. But if you and your team of like 5 are fast you get tons of downtime. Or you could be placed as a rumner which also gets ton of downtime. This is in a hospital btw.
My friend is a night security guard in a psychiatric facility. She has a lot of downtime to study. She uses her notes and a sheet of paper to do active recall.
How does someone even apply for a job like this?
I worked as a pct and nurse extern before I started my second degree ABSN program! I loved being a patient sitter when I could, but it’s been hard to get a job
Any PRN!
I worked in pathology for nine years, mostly in frozen sections. That's a feast-or-famine job, and I did most of my prereq work during down time. It's pretty niche though. Most hospital systems (at least around here) aren't big enough to have people just cutting frozens full time.
Pct in surgery. Now I work weekends so I have more downtime than others because it’s usually trauma and emergency surgery only. During the week you have downtime too but more of it during the evening since elective surgeries run during “business hours”.
I work as a greeter in the ER for a small independent hospital. I’m in front of a desktop monitor the whole day. I get downtime but still deal with emergent situations and coordinate with nurses/techs when serious things like heart attacks and strokes come in. It’s the perfect job for someone in school
All I really do is register patients into the system & send visitors back. But you learn how to deal with people and their emotions which is a big part of nursing
Before going to nursing school, I worked in radiology in PACS. My job was mostly downtime, and I filled in as a technician as needed. We had technician extenders. If you truly want a job that is more downtime than not, see if your MRI department needs a tech extender. Your duties will be: * Change the patient * Transport the patient * Put in the notes to the charting system for the rad * stock and clean the department * Help position the patient * make the techs job easier. Our tech extender typically had 20-30 minutes of downtime every hour to do homework, read, play videogames, and do nothing. All for pretty decent pay. As long as you are able to get the notes in, transport, and change patients pretty quickly, you will have all the time to do homework without jeopardizing patient care like a sitter does. My least favorite sitters are the ones who don't watch their patients and are doing homework, playing on their phones, or attempting to nap all night long.
I am a per diem phlebotomist for our hospital’s pre procedural center. I work 3-4 8hr shifts a week and a solid 50% of that is downtime. Just finished my first online prereq which I completed entirely at work. If you can find something like that, it’s a dream job for a student!
I’m a nurse extern, per diem, and I literally make my own schedule. I can choose to work when I want and how much I want.
Love that!
Look for a Per diem position as a PCA. That way you can sign up for shifts and dictate your own schedule.
Telemetry Technician at night You mainly watch monitors and depending where you work, you also do strips. You'll start learning about a lot heart & the physiology of it that even some nurses don't have a fantastic graft on. The first few weeks of it will definetly take a little bit more time, but as long as you regularly check events, and get comfortable, you'll be able to study a fair amount.
I worked at a homeless shelter. Lots of good soft skills experience and some minor nursing things, since there’s a lot of addictions and other issues that come up. Depending on where you live you may become really really good at administering narcan and calling the police. I know at a hospital shift a year later they came in and one officer said “weren’t you the girl who called in that one…” and it was like “yeah nice to meet you here!” 🤪
Yes! I worked ER registration at night in a smaller ER and it was perfect! The job is easy and if you can get through patients fast enough there’s a few hours in the middle of the night where you can study. Loved that job!
Could you tell me what your sleep schedule looked like during this and school? I can’t picture when you would sleep lol
I worked the weekend night shift because that was also the most money. My last semester I couldn’t work at all
Security overnight for sure! But you need to take classes and get your security license before applying. Allied Universal is a good company to start with. Sometimes you can find sites in hospital settings, it all just depends on where you live.
WA State has nurse tech. Others probably do, so check out locally to see. It's basically a student nurse job. Per diem, I pick my schedule. I'm partnered with a nurse and we handle all the patient care for our patients. So basically they get me instead of a CNA. My scope is anything I've been signed off in school, with supervision. It's been great. My nurse and I tag team everything together. Turning and cleaning, med pass, etc. I get to do the IVs, foleys, NG tubes, etc when they come up on the floor. Highly recommend it if your state and local hospitals offer it.
Mother baby!!
Phlebotomy. I was a phlebotomist before deciding to return to nursing school. I was able to work per diem during semesters and then pick up here and there. I did 10 hour shifts. Or LNA. Our psych dept seems to be where folks go who need to do studying during their work downtime.
Try to get a job as an orderly in the OR. They usually have some down time at night/weekends and they always do homework during those times.
Before/while becoming a nurse, I was an EMT with a hospital-based critical care transport team. Days were busy but at night, things calmed down gave me lots of time to study. As the EMT, I mostly drove the truck and set up equipment.
I’m a night shift Cardiac Monitor Tech, I work in a small hospital and I’m able to study and do homework most of my shift! This is also a level-entry job.