Agency Nurse doesn't know how to start IVs?

[GardenDove]

Yesterday, a new agency nurse showed up in our ICU to fill a hole. He arrived 2 hours early to be oriented because it was his first time at our facility, so I set him to work on a few things while I was showing him around. When I was going to maybe need another line, and asked him if he'd like to start it.

He told me that he doesn't know how to start IVs because the place where he normally works has IV therapy. I can understand that because I had worked at a hospital with IV therapy and didn't learn to start IVs until I came to my present place of employment. Nevertheless, I was surprised that an agency nurse would lack that commonly used skill.

[csiln]

Another example of a nurse who can lording it over a nurse who can't. There are some hungry nurses out there just waiting to "eat".

[Gromit]

Csiln, while I understand your rationale, you do yourself (and future patients) a disservice if you abstain from trying to get that IV -on the one hand, you may well insert it correctly, and save the patient time (after all, one assumes you are inserting an IV for a reason such as to give some type of medication). IV insertion is nearly all mechanics. If you're having a lot of difficulty, perhaps someone else should observe and figure out where you're going wrong. There was a time (back in EMS) when I rarely missed a stick, but I'm a bit more rusty (still better than average in my attempts) compared to back then, and there are nurses who are better at it than I am. Practice helps a lot, to say the least. And there are patients that have veins that just won't take PIVs (it happens). But I do urge you to seek help -you will feel better about it when you gain the confidence you will gain, when your 'sticking' improves :)

[GardenDove]

Another example of a nurse who can lording it over a nurse who can't. There are some hungry nurses out there just waiting to "eat".

Really? What are you talking about here? I've never seen that in my career regarding IVs...

[cookie102]

if only we could remember that each of us brings something different to the table.....maybe we would not be so critical of each other.....i don't work in a hospital/ICU but find it odd that PIV's are so popular in that setting in today's era of central lines.....anyway........take care of yourself and be happy that agency nurse is taking up some of your load for a day, doesn't matter what they are paid, they work for an agency for a reason, each of us has that option too.

[bluesky, BSN, RN]

IV starting is a skill

all should know how

but some at best will never be more than so and so at it

some will become competent at it

some will excel at it

some like me become the Masters at it, sought after and admired by one and all.

We worship you, master sensei.

[ceecel.dee, MSN, RN]

Coming from a small rural hospital background, I had no comprehension of any RN NOT being proficient at all general (and not so general) RN skills. A new nurse (new to us, but a 12 year veteran from a large city hospital in ICU) came to us and her admit needed an IV. I was taken aback, as her mentor during her orientation period, when she said that she didn't do that, but was eager to relearn the skill. I was talking to my sister on the phone later that day...she herself having had big city hospital ICU experience...and she said "I haven't started an IV since nursing school".

It's not than unusual, I guess.

(By the way...our new employee, by now a good friend, is great at IV's now."

[bluesky, BSN, RN]

Really? What are you talking about here? I've never seen that in my career regarding IVs...

I think they're talking about all the posters who wrote messages along the lines of "this isn't acceptable, what kind of nurse doesn't have IV skills, they should be do-not-returned", etc etc.

[Gromit]

And here I was getting ready to make a pilgrammage to the highest peak in the alps, just to seek the words of PIV wisdom... This just saved me the trip!

[Morgan314]

When I was a nursing student, we didn't touch IV's. In our last semester, we were taught the basics of how to start one, and practiced on a dummy. We had to start an IV on a classmate's hand in front of our instructor so she could check off that we could do it. This may be a basic skill for a nurse, but our instructors said that since every facility has a different procedure, we would be taught this during orientation. It posed a severe handicap in my first job and was "let go" during orientation and told that orientation was not the time/place to learn things I should have learned in school. To this day, 14 yrs later, I've never done IV's.