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Discussion

Dialysis catheters

I have a question regarding dialysis catheter’s. At the facility I work at they call non tunneled triple lumen dialysis catheter a “Shiley with a pigtail” I’m use to calling this a trialysis catheter, or a doublelumen dialysis cath I call a Quinton, they call a shiley…. they always ask me what a Quinton or trialysis catheters are when I’m giving report.

When a patient has a tunneled cath, I call it a permacath, they also don’t know what that is as they call it shiley, or one person called it a Niagara catheter.

I’m also use to permacaths being inserted in the chest wall but placed in the IJ, I read IRs notes to confirm. The nurses tell me that’s a subclavian and will inactivate my charting for that IJ Central line and chart it as a SC. 

They will say the PAs insert tunneled caths at the bedside but I thought you have to go to IR for tunneled caths?  

These are ICU nurses with experience and they all act like I’m crazy, it’s always “I’ve never heard of that”. Not 1 nurse knows what I’m talking about. They call every dialysis catheter a shiley, when I Google it, a shiley catheter is temporary line. Shiley, Quinton and Niagra are name brands? I tried to Google the differences but didn’t see anything.

I will admit my ignorance to “shiley” and didn’t know what that was because I was only used to that being a trach tube. 

 

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    I've never heard of a "Shiley" catheter either and I've been in dialysis >37 years.  And it sounds like the nurses you work with need to bone up on new developments.  Subclavian catheters went out many years ago due to central venous stenosis in that vein causing problems down the line with arm edema and failed fistulas.  Also, it would seem like no one should "inactivate" your charting due semantics on the type of catheter.  You are correct in that a permacath is tunneled, temps are not typically tunneled and I have seen residents/interns place tunneled lines at bedside so I'm guessing a PA could as well.  Just need a chest x-ray to confirm placement.  I don't know how I would handle this unless you could find a piece of information about why the switch to IJ vs. subclavian to leave lying around.  At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they are called, it's the purpose that it's intended for that is the main thing.  

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    17 hours ago, Par1 said:

    I've never heard of a "Shiley" catheter either and I've been in dialysis >37 years.  And it sounds like the nurses you work with need to bone up on new developments.  Subclavian catheters went out many years ago due to central venous stenosis in that vein causing problems down the line with arm edema and failed fistulas.  Also, it would seem like no one should "inactivate" your charting due semantics on the type of catheter.  You are correct in that a permacath is tunneled, temps are not typically tunneled and I have seen residents/interns place tunneled lines at bedside so I'm guessing a PA could as well.  Just need a chest x-ray to confirm placement.  I don't know how I would handle this unless you could find a piece of information about why the switch to IJ vs. subclavian to leave lying around.  At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they are called, it's the purpose that it's intended for that is the main thing.  

    I definitely agree, my manager admits the staff are resistant to learning new things despite the access to education. Thanks for the response. 

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    A lot of times nurses will call different catheters by their brand names, this especially rings true with "patient has a cordis", in reality patient has an introducer, but we know what it means. 

    I do have to say though I have never heard of a dialysis catheter being called a Shiley. I associate Shiley with a trach. I have heard it called a hemo-cath, uldall, sorenson, etc. 

    I also agree that most of the time lines places at the bedside are non-tunneled, especially in ICU. But, for documentation sakes we have to try and be as accurate as possible and it sounds like staff may need more education/resources

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