A day in the life of an IV/Infusion Nurse

[Becky8]

I will be interviewing for a vascular access service in a large hospital. I am excited about the idea and have been reading about this specialty. But I have never had the opportunity to see first hand what a nurse's day looks like in this specialty. I have seen IV's placed in the clinical setting and drawn bood. Can someone please give me a feel for what it is like? Thank you

[accessqueen]

There is a wide variation in how VA dept are run in different hospitals. In smaller hospitals, (such as mine), we combine outpatient infusion with inserting PICC lines, and being the go to nurses for all things IV as needed. We work 8-5 Mon-Fri, except for our infusions which is 7 days a week. There are two of us, so we switch weekends.

We do our infusions in the mornings. And respond to PICC requests throughout the day, as well as hard PIV starts. Because we are not available after hours, the hospital nurses are in charge of assessing their lines and doing all line care, dsg changes etc, In large hospitals they have dedicated PICc teams with 24 hour coverage that take care of the PICCs from start to finish. Some hospitals place PICCs at the bedside, some in dedicated procedure rooms. PICC teams usu do not generate profit therefore many hospitals try to squeeze as much work out of as few nurses as possible. That means some hospitals have nurses on call nights and weekends for PICCs.

All depends on your facility.