First Venipuncture..........ugh

Nurses General Nursing

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Today was the first day I tried inserting an IV. The nurse educator took us to the ER since we would have more there than the floor. Well well, boy is it drastically different from those dummy arms. The first victim I had was a 93 yo womem with one vein that I could work with. Well you can pretty much guess what happen. Of course it was unsuccessful. The second was an 96 yo women that was severely dehydrated. Her veins wouldn't even pop up a bit. While the other nurses got patients in their 20's. I just wished I could of gotten one IV inserted today. I felt so imcompetent. :o

Care to share your first venipuncture story....

:imbar

Specializes in Corrections, Psych, Med-Surg.

In my nursing school, we were not ALLOWED to do any IV access until after graduation and receiving our RN licenses. We were told that whatever hospital hired us would teach us that. The school didn't want the "liability." (I wound up being on an IV team, but no thanks to the school.)

I learned how to start IV's as an emergency veterinary technician while I was in nursing school....after starting a bunch of IV's on cats kittens and dehydrated shocky best buddie dogs, I got pretty good. So, now I am an ER nurse. Let me tell you all about my day TODAY. I went to stick a pt with excellent veins. Missed twice.

pt number two has one vein stuck him with an 18, got it, then inflitrated vein with phenergan....

ok. so we then stick him 6 more times for an actual IV... And indeed, I cannulated accidently, his artery as well.

Victem #3, thank goodness had acceptable veins and got only one stick.

and from there I got a bit better, but to be honest, it is all a day to day thing. Personally, I wouldn't have let you stick anything over 45 yrs until you got a few under your belt, so I would "blame" the instructor for setting you up for a difficult task. Keep working, it is a totally learned skill.... Best Wishes.

I agree with a previous post: giving you a dehydrated elderly woman when you are still a 'newbie' is unfair to you and to the patient.

The skills will come with practice...lots of practice!

I remember one of my first venipuncture patients: a wellknown judge who insisted I try a second time after I failed the first attempt. Missed that too, and then he reported me to my boss!

My boss stood up for me, bless her heart.

After 1 year of daily IV and lock starts, I became proficient.

After 2-3 years, I became a superb IV nurse and could start

practically anyone who came my way. It comes with confidence too, when you believe you can do it ...you usually can.

Never be afraid to refer the patient to someone who has better IV skills if necessary...especially if you have tried and failed x2.

So when my patients(I worked in hematology) asked for me specifically to start their IVs, I look at it this way....I learned to

become expert on the'veins' of a whole bunch of other less fortunate patients. Practice does make perfect.

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