Drawing blood

[MF123]

Can you draw blood using a butterfly needle attached to a 60 ml syringe?

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

What does the policy of the facility state? That would be a better resource than an anonymous nursing forum where you never know who is replying. And goodness, how many tubes are you filling that you'd need a 60cc syringe?

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

What does the policy of the facility state? That would be a better resource than an anonymous nursing forum where you never know who is replying. And goodness, how many tubes are you filling that you'd need a 60cc syringe?

Right?? hahahaha I was just thinking the same thing.

IF policy allows it, sure you can. However don't be at all surprised when the lab calls you saying none of your samples are usable.

You're better off just draying right into all the tubes you need if you're needing that much blood.

[MunoRN, RN]

I've never seen a facility policy that specifies what particular size syringes can be attached to a phlebotomy needle and don't see why such a thing should exist, there are too many particulars to be taken into account that a policy cannot capture.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I've never seen a facility policy that specifies what particular size syringes can be attached to a phlebotomy needle and don't see why such a thing should exist, there are too many particulars to be taken into account that a policy cannot capture.

I have seen it. I have seen policies state that the tubing would need to be attached directly to a transfer device to go straight into the tubes, or you can use the other adapter and draw into a syringe no larger then a 10mL and transfer it immediately after. (in summary as I don't have the direct policy in front of me) but this actually came up in a discussion at work once when we saw someone drawing up in a 30mL syringe. Since the nurse was using a butterfly the patient had to keep getting stuck. Because they were drawing it into a 30mL syringe with an already smaller size needle, the samples kept hemolyzing or clotting before blood was transferred. Patient complained that they had already been stuck 3x and told their "blood was bad" so we went to see what the problem was and saw the nurse was doing it this way.

One of the ladies that had worked there forever was talking about policy and pulled it up.

[AgentBeast, MSN, RN]

That large of a syringe will create too much of a vacuum and cause gross hemolysis. 10cc is the largest syringe I'd attach to a butterfly needle.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Why on earth would you use a 60cc syringe?

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

Years ago we would use a 60cc syringe when drawing blood to discard from a sickle cell patient. We drew whatever number of cc's the doctor ordered, then discarded the blood. I don't know if that is still done, as I don't work with that clientele anymore. That said, I wouldn't use a butterfly needle and a 60cc syringe to draw blood for lab studies.

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

That large of a syringe will create too much of a vacuum and cause gross hemolysis. 10cc is the largest syringe I'd attach to a butterfly needle.

This seems like a homework question to get the student to think what a butterfly and 60 mL syringe would do to the blood.

[Longleggedstar]

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[Longleggedstar]

I have never done that, the butterfly normally has a grey rubber at the end, how and why are you attaching it to a syringe?

[bgxyrnf, MSN, RN]

The problem with using a 60cc syringe *isn't* hemolysis because the force applied to the blood is so much less (remember F=P/A... as A gets bigger, F gets smaller). The problem would be a combination of (1) being very unwieldy and (2) the force being so low that it would be difficult to get the blood out of many small veins.

When I draw into syringes, I usually use a 3cc syringe with very gentle technique. Occasionally, on a big, plump healthy vein I will use a 10cc syringe.

The vast majority of the time, though, I simply use a vacutainer transfer device.