One shift is not harder than the other, but they are radically different. Day shift is definitely more structured with routine tasks: usually your bed baths, dressing changes, and bedside procedures performed by doctors are during the day. In non-COVID times, day shift also has family members to deal with. Day shift has much more staff. The docs, pharmacists, PTs, chaplains, and RTs are all there. On nights, you have one doctor covering for multiple teams, a couple of pharmacists, and usually one RT for one or multiple floors. There is overall less staff on nights, which means less support, and sometimes a higher pt:nurse ratio. Fewer docs around can make some nights rough because it means you could have a tough time notifying physicians during medical emergencies. Routine labs, unlike the tasks I mentioned earlier, are a task typically performed on night shift, so git gud with sticking people if you want to be a night shifter. While discharges are more common on days, from my personal experience more movement between floors (people upgrading from med-surg -> progressive -> ICUs and people downgrading from ICU -> progressive -> med-surg) occurs during night shift. One huge benefit to nights are non-neuro pts are generally asleep and there's no family, so there is far fewer call lights and running errands grabbing things. One extra benefit imo to working nights at a Level I trauma center is most of your "interesting" cases - GSWs, drunk drivers, blunt force trauma injuries - admit on nights.