Third-year medical student Ikaneng Yingwane shares his experience of his first night shift at the hospital - letting others know what to expect.

If you think that it’s too soon in your studies to spend the whole night caring for patients, think again! You might also be expecting some sort of preparation beforehand- perhaps a lecture session or some brief from people who have done it before. Nope, that’s probably not going to happen and that’s the reality you might have to face.

During our rotation in obstetrics, we had to observe 10 pregnant patients progress through labour up until they had delivered. This coupled with the fact that labour usually takes hours meant that our observations took hours to complete. Oddly enough, we had observed that more mothers gave birth immediately after midnight at the hospital we were at, and we, naturally, decided that it would be best if we worked through the night to complete the assignment faster. What an experience that was!

Throughout the night we were running from delivery room to delivery room as one mother screamed out in pain followed by another. It’s at this point that I should explain that I used the word “observe” loosely to describe what we actually had to do. Examining the descent of the foetuses (through vaginal examination), preparing the labour material (bringing the labour trolleys into the delivery room and preparing the medication to be given to the mother and her baby), preparing the babies after delivery (tagging, weighing, clothing them), and much more were among the things we had to do the whole night. It was exhausting!

Dawn arrived and we had managed to spend the entire night working. At that point, we were beyond exhausted, but we had managed to keep our energy levels up throughout the night because we were prepared. Navigating the night shift was hard but for first-timers, I think we did pretty well.

Unlike our predecessors and instructors, I actually care about you, so I’ll share what helped to make your first night not so arduous…

1. Know what puts you to sleep and avoid it (for me it’s eating anything heavy after 6 pm).
2. Stay engaged and active at work (keep your mind and body alert by offering to take on tasks that the nursing staff are willing to give you).
3. Use caffeine cautiously (while it seems like a no-brainer to go heavy on the caffeine to keep you awake all night, drinking too much can actually put you to sleep later on by causing you to crash).
4. Keep your energy up with healthy snacks (replace sugary high-energy snacks that give you a quick jolt of energy that quickly dissipates with healthy, natural snacks that give you a more gradual energy release that lasts longer).
5. Plan ahead (you don’t want to find yourself already feeling drowsy and tired before you start work so get plenty of rest during the day).

Hopefully, these help to keep you awake to actually enjoy your first experience. Have fun!