What a Night Shift as a Doctor Actually Looks Like

Night shifts in a hospital have a bit of a reputation—long hours, unpredictable patients, and a lot of waiting around. But what does a typical night shift actually look like? Here’s a breakdown of how it works, from the moment you clock in to when you finally head home in the morning.

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Starting the Shift: Handover and Getting Set Up

Most night shifts kick off around 8:00 - 8:30 PM (at least at my hospital). The first thing you do is get a handover from the covering doctors who have been working the late afternoon and evening shift.

During the day, doctors work from 8 AM to 5 PM, but there’s a bridging shift from 5 PM to 8:30 PM, where a handful of doctors stay back to cover multiple units. These covering doctors then hand over to the night team, which means we get briefed on:

• Urgent jobs that need to be done overnight

• Patients to watch (those who are unwell or at risk of deteriorating)

• Any major issues that happened during the day

Once the handover is done, we grab our pagers, and from that moment on, the night officially begins.

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The Night Routine: Jobs, Emergencies, and Huddles

After handover, there are two ways the night can go:

1. You get cracking on the jobs that were handed over to you

2. You wait for new jobs to come through via pager

If a patient is really sick, you don’t just get a page—you’ll hear an announcement over the PA system calling a MET Call or Code Blue (for medical emergencies like cardiac arrests). When that happens, you drop everything and go.

At some hospitals, there’s also a night huddle—a quick check-in where we meet the team for the night, including:

• Other night shift doctors

• Senior doctors

• Bed managers

• ICU liaison nurse (a key person who helps manage critical patients and attends all emergency calls)

The huddle is super useful because you get to put faces to names and know exactly who to call if things get complicated.

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What Happens the Rest of the Night?

Most of the time, night shift is a mix of:

• Responding to pager requests for tasks like prescribing meds, reviewing patients, or inserting cannulas

• Attending emergency calls

• Helping colleagues if things are getting overwhelming and you not too busy

• Occasionally, getting a bit of downtime between jobs (but never counting on it)

It’s a bit of a hurry-up-and-wait situation—you’re either slammed with work or have a bit of a lull.

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Wrapping Up: Morning Handover and Heading Home

By morning, once all the jobs are done, we wait for the day teams to arrive.

The surgical teams tend to come in earlier, sometimes as early as 6:30 AM, while other units arrive closer to 8:00 AM. Once they’re here, we hand over any important updates about what happened overnight—either in person or over the phone.

Finally, after a 12-hour shift, we clock out and (hopefully) head home to get some much-needed sleep.

And that’s how a night shift as a doctor works! Not every shift is the same, but this is generally what you can expect. 🚑💤