[sweetyjen]

Hi! I just got home after working tonight as a tech on a med-surg floor. I am a senior nursing student and saw something tonight that I am questioning! I have done a couple of foley's before and I swear that I thought that if you "miss the hole" then you are supposed to get a new one because it is then contaminated from being in the vagina. Well the nurse that I was helping missed the urethra SEVERAL times and just kept fishing until she finally got a return. No wonder this woman has an infection!!! She has to be cathed every pm. So anyway, I am right on my thinking or can you really do that?
Thanks!!!

[suzanne4]

Originally Posted by sweetyjen

Hi! I just got home after working tonight as a tech on a med-surg floor. I am a senior nursing student and saw something tonight that I am questioning! I have done a couple of foley's before and I swear that I thought that if you "miss the hole" then you are supposed to get a new one because it is then contaminated from being in the vagina. Well the nurse that I was helping missed the urethra SEVERAL times and just kept fishing until she finally got a return. No wonder this woman has an infection!!! She has to be cathed every pm. So anyway, I am right on my thinking or can you really do that?
Thanks!!!

Once it has been inserted, it is considered used and needs to be replaced, if it didn't get to its proper place. If it didn't go into the urethra, then it other touched skin or went into the vagina, which contaminated it either way. The nurse that you were with was 100% in the wrong.

[ItsyBitsySpider]

That's just bad news. I was taught that if you go in the wrong hole you leave the cath in and get a new one and insert it then remove the first. Has anyone else been taught that way?

[Tweety]

You're right and that nurse was wrong.

[safewaygreenbox]

I work on a urology ward and ItsyBitsySpider is right. If you insert it into the vagina by mistake you leave it there to help guild you with the next catheter then you take the original one out.
Kay x

[lisamc1]

Definitely, if you contaminate, you get another catheter! That poor woman! Is there something you can do about it? Can you report the nurse? She needs to be retrained or something because she is most likely infecting her patients!

[CNM-to-be]

Originally Posted by ItsyBitsySpider

That's just bad news. I was taught that if you go in the wrong hole you leave the cath in and get a new one and insert it then remove the first. Has anyone else been taught that way?

This is exactly how I was taught. All I can say is I feel sorry for that poor pt.

[safewaygreenbox]

Well, I wouldn't go as far as reporting her. Perhaps you could show her an article with research relating to this area or have a chat when you are alone together. That is what I would like a student of mine to do if she were unhappy with anything regarding my practice. Then take it from there.

Thats what I think anyway.

Kay x

[jennielynn]

As a first year nursing student--I'm learing that things aren't always done on the clinical unit the way we are taught in class!!! You are right--you leave the cath in and get a new one. This way you won't "hit the wrong hole twice". You take the mistaken one out after you get the cath in properly! I've seen RN's do this without even using sterile technique. I cringed the other week while watching an RN clean a fresh abdominal wound with an alcohol wipe--and not aseptically either!

[studentnurse74]

I see this happen ALL the time. I questioned a nurse about it, and she told me they were expensive.