Do you have to start everyone's IV for them?

I pretty much always give it two tries before I ask anyone else. I am OK at starts, not great.

I am also the go to person for IVs on my floor. For the new nurses who are just nervous or timid, I always ask if they have tried. If they say no, I tell them that they need to try twice before I will do it. I offer to go with them to help them, but they need to at least try.

For older nurses...well, some people just suck at IVs. They know whether they can do it or not. Those nurses always say something like, "Would you please try my patient in 410? I'll pass meds on your other patients/get your vitals/insert that foley in room 417 for you while you're doing it." That's fine with me! For those who are just being lazy, I say "How about we trade? I just promised my gal in 404 a bath; you do that and I'll work on your IV."

Some nurses are just lazy about even trying. Now if I am TRULY busy I will ask the charge nurse to try. Some nurses don't even get the IV tray in the room they are THAT lazy. At least get everything neededd to start the IV before asking someone.

I agree with the trade of tasks. When I worked in medicine I had the same problem......and I was not even charge. I would get the IV bucket to do one on one of my patients and every time I'd hear....."hey while you're at it would you mind doing my guy in 12, his line just blew and his ABX is due.....etc" Before I knew it I'd have done like 4 or 5 in a row. I didn't mind but that always would put me behind. So I began the trade! lol Task for task. Most had no problem doing this. I would do this with the LPNs on the floor too....We had a lot of PICC lines on the floor and they couldn't flush them, hang first dose or do the dressing change on them......the charge was suppose to cover them for any tasks needing an RN but she was busy sometimes so I would help out. And again the trade would happen.......if about to do something they would take over and do it while I went to do their task. I think this is the only way to keep there from being resentment. I found on our floor it worked.

We've all got our thing. If I've got a chemo, dialysis or burn pt who might...might...have one vein, I'm going to get the best sticker around for the pt's sake. I'm ok at IVs, but not great. However, I can get an NGT in just about anybody (no head injuries, please, no desire to irrigate someone's frontal lobe, thanks). No idea why I'm good at it, I just am. So, rather than have someone bore out a pt's sinuses, I'd rather they called me before they got everything bleeding and swollen so I could do it quick with less pain to the pt. It's teamwork. If I've got someone working with me who can't take a goopy trach, I'll take their patient and they can take the burn pt that grosses me out. We do for each other in the best interest of the pt.

I don't consider myself lazy, but I am scared to do IVs. I was trained during orientation for a measly 3 hrs, with someone over my shoulder showing me what vein to go after, etc. I don't feel comfortable doing IV starts, I haven't done one since orientation. We have IV techs that we can call, and our nurse aides are supposed to be trained to do them also. When I first started my job a few months ago the aides would try and do IV starts if needed, now they don't seem to at all (they also do blood draws). I know I should dive in and try, but I am very timid about it. Not sure how to get over that. My pt population are mostly people that have hidden veins (obese pts) or have tiny veins, which doesn't help.

There are two of us on nights that have a rep for being good at IV starts. (I know I'm second best, but don't let word get out that I admitted to it!)

We've had shifts where we walked on with four or five sticks to do that days saved for us...and often are asked to do IV starts and labs for our night crew too. We're LPNs, ao I really don't mind doing sticks for those who are willing to help out with our pushes...but there are about four who just can never seem to find the time to do something as simple as a Pepcid push for us who expect us to drop whatever we're doing as soon as they need a stick. Regardless of how busy we are, and never with any offer of help with our pts, even if something comes up while we're doing their sticks.

We even go to other floors to do their sticks for them.

When both of us are working we'll team up together, or else we trade off based on who is best able to spare the time. We're the go-to team for those pts who tell you "last time I was here they put one of those line things in me".

It does get irritating with certain nurses, but I just try to keep in mind that it's for the best for the pt if certain nurses don't even try. Although there are times that I pop an 18 in on the first time and come out and feel like saying "Seriously?"...but I don't...well, very rarely.

There are a lot of lazy nurses in acute care. They love to pass on some of their work to the charge nurses. When i was in charge during most of my career i felt like a glorified babysitter. Nurses are basically a pain in the @#$%.

im an RN and a phlebotomist, so yes. i should be an infusion nurse lol but wait nevermind they only hire RN's with "experience".

just an aside here ......I was shocked reading here that there are any facilities that allow non-licensed people to insert IVs. Especially when I have worked in places were they only allow the "IV/PICC team" (a nurses only team) to put in all IVs. I guess when they allowed all floor nurses throughout the hospital to place them they had way too many cases of Phlebitis, infection, etc. Having techs do Phlebotomy is different then IVs-- being that the IV stays in for a period of time. Can't say that when I am a patient I would ever let someone who was not a nurse put in my IV (other then a paramedic, but that is different--they have the training.)

I don't consider myself lazy, but I am scared to do IVs. I was trained during orientation for a measly 3 hrs, with someone over my shoulder showing me what vein to go after, etc. I don't feel comfortable doing IV starts, I haven't done one since orientation. We have IV techs that we can call, and our nurse aides are supposed to be trained to do them also. When I first started my job a few months ago the aides would try and do IV starts if needed, now they don't seem to at all (they also do blood draws). I know I should dive in and try, but I am very timid about it. Not sure how to get over that. My pt population are mostly people that have hidden veins (obese pts) or have tiny veins, which doesn't help.

I get that you're scared to do them, but he truth is the people who are good at them, or even just proficient, are the ones who kept trying to do them. When I started work in a small, rural hospital with only a well baby nursery, only one person was ever was able to get the baby peripheral IVs started. I know we didn't do them often, but when we needed one we NEEDED one and ended up calling in that RN, who was the manager and an excellent RN, or waiting over an hour sometimes for transport teams to arrive to get an IV started.

I asked the manager very early in my orientation why no one tried to get the baby IVs or barely tried before calling the manager. I thought there was some rule or something against RNs starting the peripheral IVs. Her reply was that people are afraid and won't try. Well, from then on I asked to try on EVERY baby who ever needed an IV. If I couldn't get it after 3 sticks then the manager would try if available. IF she didn't then occasionally a FP doc would try an umbilical vein, or we'd wait for transport. When transport got there I would watch and ask them about starting the IVs, after all they did it routinely and sometimes even they had trouble.

After a few years, I was the one who was the IV starter on the unit and even in the ER. I didn't learn it by NOT doing it or hiding. I learned by trying over and over. My mission was to teach all the RNs I worked with how to do baby IVs, especially since once we had a pediatrician on staff we kept many more sick babies. I would always have the inexperienced RN look for a vein and then agree or suggest another one, then help her get it started. Usually, once they got one or two under their belt they were more willing to try again.

By the time our unit closed, there was always an RN on a shift who was reasonably comfortable with starting these IVs. So, moral of the story...TRY, TRY and watch someone with good IV skills as often as you can, ask them for their tips (every RN has a different set of tips), and just keep working at it. In time, you'll get more comfortable with the task.:)