IV catheter reset

Nursing Students General Students

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Specializes in OHS, Emergency medicine.

Ok, so when practicing IV's (on dummy arms) how do you reset your needle/cath so you can reuse to practice again? I saw someone do it once and forgot how.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

reset? you mean reseat the stylet into the cannula? it depends on the device you are using. if there is a retractable needle, the needle cannot be removed once it has retracted into it's sheath. i would recommend you use steel butterflys instead. or ask the instructor if there are some old insytes around that you can play around with that do not have the spring recoil in them.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

The ones we practiced with were supposedly unretractable, but if you took a unfolded paper clip and put it into the little pinhole at the bottom you can return it to normal. It took practice to get it just right.

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Specializes in Day Surgery, Agency, Cath Lab, LTC/Psych.
The ones we practiced with were supposedly unretractable, but if you took a unfolded paper clip and put it into the little pinhole at the bottom you can return it to normal. It took practice to get it just right.

Watch out though, its easy to stab yourself with those things! :imbar

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