If you’re a Medical Assistant, certified Nursing Assistant, Nurse, or other healthcare professional, there’s a good chance you’ll have to work on a holiday at some point. If you do, it’s easy to feel like you’re missing out on a major family or social event. It can be hard, but it’s essential; you’re essential. When you have to work on a holiday, here are some tips on how to can get through it.
Remember that you’re essential
If you work in healthcare, you work in an industry that people need every day, every hour, no matter what day or time it is. The fact is, people need healthcare regardless of what the calendar says. Illness don’t take a holiday. Heart attacks don’t care if it’s Thanksgiving, cancer doesn’t know its Christmas, babies being born don’t care that its New Year’s Eve, and broken bones can’t wait just because it’s Halloween.
Healthcare deals with life, death, birth, healing, and things that are often bigger than us. Nurses and Medical Assistants deal with all of it. The families who need to be in the hospital on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Eve will remember it for the rest of their lives. They’ll talk about the Halloween when they had a broken arm or the Easter when their child was born. You’ll be there not just on a holiday, but on a holiday that was momentous for them. One they’ll always remember.
There are benefits to working holidays
You may not realize it but you also may have the opposite occur; your shift could be a little quieter than it normally would. Patients who have the option to push a surgery, will elect to stay at home with their families and reschedule said surgery. What’s more, if your workplace is one where it first asks staff to volunteer to work on holidays, then saying yes to a shift on a day off could be a good way to increase your standing with your co-workers. Other healthcare professionals on staff will be glad you’re working and allowing them to stay home, and supervisors will be glad just to have that time covered.
Working holidays also provides an additional benefit which is a chance for staff to bond while also making some extra cash! You’ll feel a sense of togetherness with the other people who are putting in time, and there’s also the chance to make some overtime. And when you do clock out, there’s always the chance to celebrate later. You might have missed the calendar day, but holidays are what we make them. If you have to celebrate with loved ones a day later, that’s just as real as doing it the day of.
Are you ready to start your Medical Assisting career no matter what the calendar says?
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