As on O.R. nurse, how often do you start IV's?

babaz · Mar 25, 2008

Day surgery nurse, CRNA, or anesthesiologist. I would like to start them when they need help, but I haven't started them since nursing school (I started in the OR as a new grad).

buck70 · Mar 26, 2008

I'm not sure why, but in my OR, the anesthesiologist/anesthetist traditionally starts the IV if there isn't one, already. If we want to start one, however, they usually never object. I think a lot of us OR nurses are simply out of practice, and so we hesitate. (At least I do.) We have one or two RNs that like to, and they can start all they want. I don't think there is a policy against it.

lpnstudentin2010, LPN · Mar 30, 2008

The hospital I am a patient at:

If you get it in holding: Anesthesia does it

If you get it in the OR: I have no clue, I am asleep.

IsseyM · Apr 1, 2008

As on O.R. nurse, how often do you start IV's?

RARELY. Preop nurses or anesthesiologists start IVs in our OR.

OR male nurse · Apr 1, 2008

I start a couple a week. Mainly on days we work with kids and have to do either dental or ENT. Kids are challenging. You get those fat little wrists and you can hardly see or palpate the veins. At the last place I worked we had a pre-op holding area and I started a lot more just to keep in practice. The anesthesiologists loved the RN's that would start their IV's for them.

mcmike55 · Apr 20, 2008

In the past, at our hospital, IV's were anesthesia's domain.

Never did them during my first few years in the OR.

Those docs/crna's are long gone, and now, for the past 10/15 years or so, the RN or LPN working the holding area does them.

We will have them already in place from ED or the floor, but other-wise we do them all.

Occasionally, when we can't get one, the anes.doc will do them.

Inhalation inductions for ped, the circulating RN will typically start the IV in the OR after the pt is asleep.

Mike