Did you learn IV in NS?!

dudette10, MSN, RN · May 7, 2012

In my state, it's against regulation for a nursing student to do venipuncture, so no, I didn't do IV starts on a real person while in school. Your friend's reason for not including it in the curriculum is wrong...not every hospital has an IV start team.

Don't worry about it, though. Practice makes perfect. I went from not being able to hit the broad side of a barn only two months ago to getting sticks on most of my patients and the patients of my colleagues (because they know I want the practice, and they are more than happy to hand the IV tray to me).

CT Pixie, BSN, RN · May 7, 2012

My school is the same way. Students are not allowed to start IV's. I was also told it was an on the job thing.

Our instructor also mentioned that most of the hospitals around our area have IV teams that handle all the IV starts, but not all. I do know of one hospital that trains nurses to do IV starts (not sure if they have a dedicated IV team or not).

tammy_zeidan09 · May 7, 2012

Oh okay! Thanks for your replies! I always thought that'd be a crucial thing to know, and not knowing it would put you behind in job findings! But since it's common, I'm not worried. =]

prettymica, ASN, BSN, MSN, LPN, RN, APRN, NP · May 7, 2012

Oh wow, im sorry.. I believe I am the only person that started an IV in LPN school, and we had to sign waivers to perform IV start on each other in my RN bridge program.. We so have IV teams here but we all learn these skills. You all should get to learn IV's what if you decide to work in home health, you wont have the skills.

Nolli · May 7, 2012

My school does not teach it either, but I feel that it is something worth knowing. While techs or IV teams often seem ubiquitous these days in my experience IV teams were only called in for the difficult sticks and not all of the techs were allowed to start IVs. I think it varies from facility to facility and unit to unit so I can't make blanket statements regarding whether or not you will be doing a lot of IVs as a nurse, but most nursing students I've talked to were only allowed to observe IV placement.

PghRN30 · May 7, 2012

My nursing school we also did not insert IVs. It is actually a system wide hospital policy that students are not to start IVs from what I have heard. At the end of my critical care semester our instructor did show us how to on a fake arm, and allowed us to try if we wanted on that fake arm. Other then that, in the system, unless we are ED or ICU nurses, we will not be inserting IVs. The IV team is called.

AgentBeast, BSN, RN · May 7, 2012

Yeah we learned it and performed IV starts in clinical. That was second semester stuff in my program.

Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN · May 7, 2012

Oh okay! Thanks for your replies! I always thought that'd be a crucial thing to know, and not knowing it would put you behind in job findings! But since it's common, I'm not worried. =]

depending on where you work will depend on whether or not you have an IV team. Learning to start them in an on the job thing. When I went to school in the dark ages we started them on each other then spent time as a part of our orientation in pre-surgical area or x-ray starting everyone's IV.

YOu will have so much on yoru plate you will have plenty to do.

Good luck in school! :hug: Come here for help when you get stuck!

OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN · May 7, 2012

Hmmmm we learned how to in my program. I haven't had a ton of oppurtunites in clinicals to actually start them but I have attempted 3 times and started 2 :) I know my school always says anyone can learn skills but not why things are done and I partially agree. I think skills need alot of practice which is why I am very glad that I've been very lucky to have the clinical experiences that I have where I've been able to practice many skills a lot but its pure luck of placements. Where I live is a very metro area so as example last semester for we had students from my class at 8 diffrent pretty big hospitals and what you can or can't or get to see or not see really depends on your placement, clinical instructor, and you. I seek out oppurtunities to do or see things on the floor so you can always do that on your down time and so many nurses have been very reseptive :) Congrats on starting and being accepted! I love nursing so far even with the stress :)

sandyfeet · May 7, 2012

We learned how to do it second semester on each other. We were allowed to start IVs in clinical but always had an RN supervising/helping out.

ssaarraahh · May 7, 2012

We had to learn how to do IVs in nursing school. During clinical, some of the hospitals would let nursing students put IVs in while other hospitals did not. Everytime I put an IV in, I had to have a nurse right next to me to make sure I was doing it correctly.