Last one 2 years ago. I just don't get it. I've tried dozens of IV starts on people with veins of bodybuilders, like veins that are the size of normal person arms. Basically arms that are 99% veins and 1% space between them. Any anxious student with shaky hands can throw a needle blindfolded from 10 ft away and still end up with a perfect IV, and I will be poking and poking and poking... to no avail. This is not a confidence issue, I stopped caring after like 20 fails after realizing this is just not one of my talents, I can't be good at everything. Not a technique issue, I've been through IV courses, IV team education and personal training and everything, know exactly how to do it, but just can't do it. No pressure. Our hospital has an IV team which I call for IV starts, also a bunch of nurses oin the floor who are good at IV starts so I can have IV placed quick without a problem. But sometimes if pt pulls out IV and I'm bored have nothing to do, I'll just grab supplies and try to do it myself even though I don't have to. Semi-comatose patients, or patients who don't care who have excellent bulging veins (anything less than excellent which is 99% of my pts I usually pass on or do 2 max sticks before calling for help)... I'll stick them numerous times, again I feel no pressure of any kind on myself, just pure curiosity... but I just leave them bleeding from multiple holes and with a bunch of massive hematomas. I wonder if I should just stop even trying, I'm just hurting my patients for no reason.
It's like anti-talent or something. I don't know anybody else who would try something so supposedly simple over a hundred times and still not learn how to do it. It's like a part of my brain responsible for whatever coordination/tactile feedback stroked out or something. It's like my hands are not my hands but some metal pincers I'm holding/using, I don't feel anything and I don't understand anything that's happening when I'm poking my patients. Just zero. Nothing. And yes, I've had it explained to me billion times how what I should feel, but I just don't.
