starting lines in nursing school

[shippoRN]

I'm curious, anyone actually learning to start lines and draw blood at some point in their nursing program? My school doesn't do it, they say you will be taught at the hospital that employs you. I dunno its the one big disappointment i have, oh well

[vashtee, RN]

We will be learning IV starts, but I don't know about drawing blood. I hope so! (But I think phlebotomy usually does draws in the hospital, anyway.)

[TruDivaRN, BSN, RN]

This is my last semester in school. IMO I have learned how to do more things this semester. I have started several IV's without assistance now, and have done a few blood draws before hep locking the IV. The purpose of drawing the blood before starting the IV was to keep the patient from being stuck a second time for blood.

[TRINI_RN]

At the end of the 1st semester we learned how to do blood draws (even got to practice on eachother!). In 3rd semester we learned how to start IV's, and we each had a designated day where we were sent to outpatient surgery to start IV's for them. It was cool, those were the 2 skills I was most afraid of, but now it seems like the whole class is pretty comfortable with it. We got ALOT of practice in our med-surg rotations with both, so now we freak out about other stuff :bugeyes::uhoh21::uhoh21: LOL!

[carolinapooh, BSN, RN]

It seems to depend on the school. A lot of my clinicals were at Duke Hospital, which has its own IV team (like the teams they seem to have for everything else!). When I did my preceptorship (senior capstone at some schools), I was on a cardiac floor where they were able to start their own IVs as access on that floor was important and potentially an immediate need. On the floor I'm working on now, an adult oncology floor, we also start our own IVs (we give it two tries b/f calling the team since so many of our patients are hard sticks). I haven't done one up there yet because two of my admissions so far have had ports, and two were impossible for even our most expert IV person!

I know that the students who did their preceptorship in the ED did tons of IV sticks. I think it's a great skill to have; one of my personal goals is to become expert at it.

[Jilaweez, BSN, MSN, RN]

We get to do that during third semester. I am looking forward to it and would be disappointed too.

[Psqrd]

4th semester with 8 weeks left and we have our IV class in the beginning of April.

They used to have it as a seperate class that we had to take...then they saw the need and responded to students requests and made it a part of the program.

P2

[beth66335, BSN, RN]

We have skills lab all semester 1st half of 1st year and 1/2 of second semester and we learn how to do every skill we will be allowed to do in the real world, however we do them on mannequins so we still hope for a chance to do them on a real person in clinicals, and so far I haven't gotten to do any IV sticks or blood draws. I probably won't unless my pt pulls one out and the Dr doesn't want to D/C it or I get a brand new pt, which I probably won't get as a student. I worked as a phlebotomist before NS so I am a real vampire! I miss it so!

[valkyria, BSN, RN]

technique is not something you can teach or "learn". you can learn the anatomy of the veins and vessels and you can watch someone start an iv. here is miami, starting ivs is part of a "lab" at a few of the schools around. the community college program emphasizes it more than the four year program. but, i never got comfortable, let alone proficient at starting ivs before i just went in and did it, over and over and over again. if you are brave, go to work for a hospital and see if you can get sent to the er. down here, i worked for a big organization while in nursing school and i asked to be sent to the er and there, you had no choice but to do it. i trained for a while on an oncology in patient unit and that was challenging. while most had ports, the ones that did not, i learned alot there. the best iv rns i know are actually former military medics and had to be good because they were in the field and got to where they could feel what no one else could. i have trained with a number of different nurses, different specialties, different backgrounds, different years of experience, and each had some "trick" that they did and not all of those "tricks" would have been approved of by my professors. so, the bottom line is, over time, you will develop your own technique and your own"trick" and it will become second nature. some people are just naturally better than others but you will get there too.

[Amburgerz12]

I must say that I am really nervous for this point to come, I am naturally a little shaky and I can't stop thinking about if I'm going to be good at this or not... Is this a natural feeling for everyone?

[jjjoy, LPN]

My school didn't teach starting IVs or blood draws at all. I felt that was a drawback.

[Kiringat]

We very briefly learned IVs during third semester. It seems like in Denver all of the hospitals have IV teams who do 90% of starts and the lab techs draw all of the blood, so the schools don't see the point in teaching it. Seems like to only place to actually do many sticks is in the ER/D, and your training is the hospital's responsibility. Which sucks.