BP cuff not required?!

RNstudent13renee · Oct 31, 2013

Not odd at all. They will probably have them in school for when you learn and in the hospital you will usually use a dynamap if you have to take a BP. Not to say you shouldn't learn, and getting one to practice with wouldn't be helpful, but for it to be required would be, in my opinion, unnecessary. You'll still definitely do manual BP's, but once you learn it it usually sticks with you. I think it depends on your hospital but most have manual cuffs laying around somewhere if you need them also, so you won't need your own. Less to keep up with :)

I don't even know why they would require you to buy gloves....they are pretty much everywhere you look in hospitals.

Congrats also!!!

RN9742 · Oct 31, 2013

Honestly I have rarely used my BP cuff, most clinical sites have them in pt rooms connected to the wall (or they use disposable). I have yet to have a clinical instructor that is ok with us using the automatic machines though.

krisiepoo · Oct 31, 2013

I am almost done with my program and never needed one... they're in all the sim labs at school, all the hospitals have them and we needed to know how to do that before we got in the program anyways...

Stephalump · Oct 31, 2013

We have no use for our own bp cuff (other than for our own practice at home.) Patients have their own cuffs at the hospital (cuts back on germs!) and we can't use regular BP cuffs on the manikins in the lab.

nlynrob · Oct 31, 2013

I didn't have to get a BP cuff or anything else on your list other than a stethoscope. Some people did buy them to practice at home though.

schnookimz · Oct 31, 2013

When I was in clinical we weren't even allowed to use our own bp cuffs. The facilities wanted us to use their materials because they knew that they worked and were calibrated corrrectly.

nursephillyphil, BSN, RN · Oct 31, 2013

My school didn't require bp cuffs as the facilities will have their own for you to use, it's can also be an infection control thing if you end up using the same bp cuff across multiple patients.

mrsboots87 · Oct 31, 2013

As another possibility, maybe your school provides on in a lab kit. My school has a lab kit that is provided at orientation that has all the supplies we will need to practice in lab, BP cuff, gloves, syringes, all that jazz. It is included in the program fee for each semester. We will only use the BP cuff for out of clinical practice though because all the sites provide there own for each patient as infection control. SO either your lab will have them for students, or you will get a lab kit with on in it.

futurenursedd · Oct 31, 2013

You will rarely use the BP cuff. The school will probably have them there for you. Honestly though I have only used mine a hand full of times at school. I mostly used it to practice on my fiance at home. My clinical instructor actually told us the only reason they still teach us how to do BP's manually is because we need to know how to do it an emergency (power outage or something like that). She told us after this semester (our first) all BP's will be done electronically through a machine.

classicdame, MSN, EdD · Oct 31, 2013

due to infection control reasons we do not allow students/staff to use their own equipment.

melizerd, ASN, RN · Oct 31, 2013

Another one who never had one of their own. The clinical sites have their own. After 1st semester where we learned to do them manually (and the LTC facilities had some manual ones) the hospitals have automatic ones, or isolation rooms sometimes have a manual one just for that room instead of an electronic one for that room.

I don't even have my own stethoscope in the unit I'm currently finishing my last semester in. Each room has a dedicated one (Not a disposable isolation one), and they are all Littman, they get Cavi wiped down and never leave that room.