How to learn to start IVs?

[Momma1RN]

I graduated with my BSN last year. I've worked on a tele floor at a community hospital and we have an IV team that starts and maintains all IV lines. We did not learn in school how to start an IV. When I was hired, I asked if I could have the opportunity to shadow and train with the IV team, but was told no, because we have an IV team. I feel like it's a skill I should have and am nervous about being turned down for future opportunities because I have never started an IV before. Thanks!

[Twinmom06, ASN, APN]

Nursing schools do not teach IV skills - they rely on your job to do so. I've been nurse for 2 years...couldn't hit the broad side of a barn....endoscopy is great because people are healthy and have veins (generally) that stand up and wave at you...hitting a LOL or LOM who's dehydrated, combative and have onion skin (or elephant skin) is where learning should happen...but it doesn't....

moral of the story - try to get in with the IV team or you may need to find a different job to gain IV skills if there is a 24 hour IV team

[excited1]

Nursing schools do not teach IV skills - they rely on your job to do so. I've been nurse for 2 years...couldn't hit the broad side of a barn....endoscopy is great because people are healthy and have veins (generally) that stand up and wave at you...hitting a LOL or LOM who's dehydrated, combative and have onion skin (or elephant skin) is where learning should happen...but it doesn't....

moral of the story - try to get in with the IV team or you may need to find a different job to gain IV skills if there is a 24 hour IV team

My school teaches IV skills and we have a practicum we must pass. Then with our instructor present, we are able to start IV's on patients in clinical. Every program is different and I am happy that mine allows us the opportunity.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

Ask your ICU friends in this little hospital if they will let you attempt an IV start on an intubated pt if one needs an iv. That way you can focus on learning the technique and you wont be distracted or worried that you are hurting them. The floors call icu for iv starts all the time. We are happy to help to teach this and other skills.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

IV skills are NOT a core skill for paramedics. Assessing and treating patient's independently and with little physician input , appropriately IS! To include MULTIPLE medications which are ever increasing, IO, intubation, Umbilical lines in some areas, 12 lead EKGs and we have to interpret them, not just hand them to a MD, cardioversion, pacing and anything else in ACLS!! ... Paramedics do FAR more than start IVs in people, we are not "skills junkies"!!

I am not sure if you intent was to make it sound like paramedics are just IV starters, we are not! I have never heard of any state that allows EMT basics to start IVs either, of course that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Please do research on the roles of different professionals before you call what you think our "core" skill is something a monkey can do. I am both an RN and a medic and can say i do FAR more critical thinking as a medic than I do as a nurse, and without having to ask "mother may I" before administering treatment!

Annie

Annie, I'm also a Paramedic (have been for about 15 years now) and an RN. As such, I'm well aware of what a Paramedic is capable of. I don't have to research it... I live it! Much of what you listed are "just" psychomotor skills. The reason I call certain things "monkey skills" is simple: you could practically teach a monkey how to do it. What's missing from that? The education that guides you for when you might or might not use a given skill. Knowing when and when NOT to do a skill is part of what makes a good nurse or good medic. Medics learn a certain skillset as part of their basic training. Find me a Paramedic that never learned to start an IV line or do OTI in school and I'll politely inform you that you've found a unicorn. There are certain "advanced" skills that nurses might never learn in school. A nurse may be an absolute whiz at titrating multiple vasoactive drips but might not actually know how to place the IV catheter itself and may not actually have to.

More importantly for either is knowing how to do a very good assessment, think critically, and come up with an appropriate care plan. Most of the time, as a Paramedic, my plan of care would match up with a given protocol (recipe for care) but if my plan didn't, then I'd have to call for an order to utilize my plan (or not) as medical control deemed appropriate. After that, I must utilize various skills throughout implementation of that plan. It could be IV insertion, needle thoracostomy, ETI, TCP, administration of a medication... or even simply giving a patient an ice bag. Most of that I could delegate to another properly qualified person. There are nursing roles that require the nurse do the same thinking.

I'm no fan of "cookbook" care providers... those folks simply gave up doing any critical thinking and let someone else do it for them.

To everyone reading this post, I apologize for the momentary threadjack, I felt that some clarification was necessary in regard to a post earlier in this thread. Please continue with the original topic.