So I start the ADN program in August and I am so beyond myself. I am so excited to start my journey!
I spoke to a co worker who is in the program that I will be in and was telling me ait about the program.
One thing kind of got my attention. He said we as students do not learn how to insert IVs. That is on job training. I always figured that's something every RN should know how to do, no?
He said that now there are IV teams in hospitals, so you don't need to know how to do it.
Just curious to know if our school is the only one who does this..
We had a two hour lab where they taught us to start IVs and draw blood on plastic arms. As far as getting to in the clinical setting, it depended on opportunity. I was very lucky to have my last semester of clinicals on a floor where everybody got labs drawn on our shift so we had alot of practice with that. I was also sent to the ER during clinical by my instructor one night just to see what it was like and was very fortunate that the nurse I was with there found the opportunities for me to start my first and second IVs on patients. This was not the norm for my class. We're graduating in August (BSN) and I'd guess about half our class has had the opportunity to start IVs and half has not. We are all allowed to give IV meds, set up lines, etc. with nurse supervision though.
We practiced on a plastic arm in lab and are allowed to do it depending on the facility and the nurses...always with either the RN or our instructor. I have only had the opportunity to attempt one on a very tiny old lady with tiny veins and it didn't happen for me...but it made me feel a little better when my instructor, a practicing ER nurse, couldn't get a good stick either.
We started IV's on a mannequin in our fundamentals class (1st semester). 2nd semester one of our clinical rotations was an IV lab where we started IVs all shift. It was an incredible experience. Many of the nurses we worked with (it was on a GI unit) were recent grads and were jealous that we got that experience. One of them told me she had only started one when she graduated. I cannot even imagine.
Also, the hospitals here do have IV teams, but you always try to start your own before you call them in. If you work in a rural area, IV starts and blood drawing WILL be your responsibility -- no IV teams there.
Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
We could not do them on each other, but could do them in the clinical setting. I have had at 10 chances to insert IVs. I thought it was backwards that we could do them on pts but not on each other. We learned on the fake arm 2nd semester and then in clinical all of second year.
We were not allowed to start them on each other at all. We used a dummy arm and practiced in skills lab and then were supervised in our first attempts on a real patient. I wish we would have had the opportunity to practice on one another to hone our skills. To date, I've only had 1 successful stick in the clinical setting and I am still terrified of doing it!
We had to start 1 IV to pass med surge clinical. I have done 6, YAY! Our clinical told the nurses when we got there that morning to give us all IV's, and they always did!
Wow, I had never heard of so many schools not allowing IV starts until now! My program had us first practice on dummy arms in lab (we weren't allowed to stick each other), and then any time we had an opportunity to start one in clinical, they let us! I guess I just assumed it was like that everywhere.
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Joe N635DC
111 Posts
My BSN program...
Working with IV's yes and administering IV fluids and medications? Yes.
Starting IV lines? Nope, most programs leave this out as many hopsitals require you to be IV certified in thier institution anyway.