No IVs in my Nursing School, opinions please?

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Hi,

I just found out that we as students will not be starting IV's and that this is an advanced skill that will be acquired after I graduate.

I've read other posts were students are starting IV's so I am wondering is it just because my hospital has their own IV team, or is it a "sucky" nursing school?

I kind of feel dissappointed. I had assumed that this would be a very basic Nursing skill I would learn.

Any one care to comment? Is this the norm? :(

I already do IV's (EMS) and had no clue that there are schools out there that don't teach IV placement.

Specializes in Infertility, Reproductive Endocrinology.

I am in an LPN program and we are going to learn IV's next semester with 105 and 106. We are going to have an IV day at a clinical site where all we do is start IV's all day long.

Specializes in ER.

I never knew that starting IV's was not part of some programs. We are allowed to start IV's on each other and also on our instructors. I have not had an opportunity to start one on an actual pt yet. I have heard that some of the hospitals in our area use IV teams so the nurses never do IV's.

T

Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

My nursing school considers IV starts to be a basic nursing skill and they teach it in the LPN (first year) of the program. Fist in a fake arm, then in each other, then in a real live patient. Once we are checked off as being safe (not the same as being good) we started them on patients without supervision on clinicals all the time.

Same day sugery is GREAT experience for learning to start IVs. We all spent a day there doing IVs all day and those that needed it spent several days there. I can say that the hopsital I work at assumes that new grad RNs will be able to start their own IVs.

Specializes in Emergency.

I too was told that starting IVs is an advanced practice skill to learn after graduation. However, many students in my program attended a weekend IV therapy course at a local community college. The course was meant for nurses, but as students we could take it as an extra. And, because the course was recognized by the hospital we do our clinicals at, we are allowed to start IVs there (supervised of course). Some of the students who planned to go into non-clinical settings (ie. public health) didn't take the extra course, aren't practicing the IVs starts in hospital, and it isn't a mark against them or anything.

My understanding is most schools don't cover IV starts, and most hospitals expect to teach you after you graduate. I could be wrong. Maybe you can see if the hospital has a course for their new nurses, and if you can take it with them....then do your practice starts on your clinical time?

relax. It's not that hard to start IV's. Paramedics do it with 20 minutes of training and relatively little theory.

Specializes in ER.
relax. It's not that hard to start IV's. Paramedics do it with 20 minutes of training and relatively little theory.

20 minutes??

T

20 minutes??

T

more or less. Now that I'm in nursing school and getting all this *education* I'm shocked at what they let us do as paramedics with *relatively* little theory behind it. I mean, we had just enough knowledge to be dangerous LOL. We had to have a little bit of training in everything because you got called for a little bit of everything - delivering babies, car wrecks with spinal fractures, aneurysm blow outs, heart attacks, strokes, choking, psychotic schizophrenics...so yea, you went to school at night twice a week for 9 months and did some runs with the busiest rig you could find and then they sent ya out there. They don't let BSN's defibrillate and intubate...but we did.

Now admittedly it helped if you went on to be ACLS certified, etc., but truthfully, you flew by the seat of your pants quite frequently...

Specializes in Med-Surg, Cardiac.
relax. It's not that hard to start IV's. Paramedics do it with 20 minutes of training and relatively little theory.

20 minutes?????

As I remember when I became a paramedic (many years ago) we had two lectures on it then we practiced on the crummy IV manekins. After the instructors were sure we knew aseptic technique and that we weren't going to send any catheter shear emboli floating we spent a couple weeks practicing on each other. I had 13 IV starts on classmates and 13 black and blue spots from their IV starts on me. At that point we were allowed to start IVs in the ER on real patients while being closely supervised.

Of course I can't speak to how medics are trained these days. I do know the medics aren't allowed to practice on each other here. I'm sure the training varies from site to site. But I can't imagine being able to start IVs successfully without at least some decent training. It's not an intuitive skill.

Specializes in Labor and Delivery.

At my school we do IV's in third semester.

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

In nursing school - it is important to learn skills. However, it is much more important to be able to assess a patient and know when things are wrong.

Starting IV's is fine and with practice everyone becomes good at it. However, it is a skill and if you don't know why the IV is needed (and what you are going to infuse) than it is wasted effort.

Good luck in school - learn assessment skills first, than tasks.

I've been a nurse for 24 years. The insurance the nursing school carried on the students wouldn't allow for the students to do IV's.

Even though our instuctors didn't agree with this, we wouldn't have been covered if something were to happen.

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