I currently work in a hospital on a sugical/trauma unit right now we are short nurses so lately is it the norm for each of us to have 8 pts, sometimes with 1-2 techs and no unit clerk. I feel this is to many pts but I am told we have to take that many, I am sure a lot of nurses are dealing with this, but what can you do without getting fired? Nobody wants to put in any overtime we all have been to exhusted on our days off to work. We work 12 shifts but often we are there later to trying and catch up.  So how many pts is "to many pts?" what do you feel a safe number of pts would be? and what can be done about this when you feel you have to many pts and they are not getting the care they should?