CVP's before x-ray line confirmation

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Yesterday surgery placed a cortis in my pt with the hopes of getting CVP's (followed by a swan if needed). I have allways been told under no circumstances to hook anything up to a line such as this without x-ray confirmation. Allthough the pt wasn't crashing (yet...) they wanted these readings sooner rather than later. He told me to hook it up and get the reading and I respectfully declined, and got a pretty dirty looks for the surgeon. Am I just overparanoid since the amount of fluid running from the pressure bag would be minimal and x-ray was (supposedly) on the way? I am still a young pup in the ICU (barely over a year) so any thoughts would be welcome.

I am also new in the ICU (1year). But when inserting a quad lumen for example, every line is flushed with a 10ml of normal saline equal 40ml upon initial insertion before x-ray confirmation. The pressure bag on a CVP is flushed with 3ml/hr when it is hooked up. So you may not want to administer any fluid with a volume but a CVP is ok.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

Thanks for all of your advice, I asked around the unit and the consensus was yes. In the end x-ray showed up within 5 minutes and they ended up not needing a swan, so it all worked out. Thanks for the advice

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