IV Insertion in School?

ORNerd, BSN, RN · Dec 9, 2015

I didn't place IV's while in school, I learned on the job. I did get to practice on a few fake arms prior to the real thing, though.

motor_mouth, MSN, RN · Dec 9, 2015

We did not learn in school either.

vanilla bean · Dec 9, 2015

There was a thread about this a few days ago in the Student section. You can take a look at the replies to that thread here.

caliotter3 · Dec 9, 2015

Neither did we, and that was decades ago.

Stella_Blue · Dec 9, 2015

We all practiced on each other, and my instructor made sure we all got a try in clinicals. I think it just depends on the school.

tlynn_0804 · Dec 9, 2015

At my school we did. We practiced on the mannequins, then got plenty of practice on pts in same day surgery, in med/surg, I even got to put an IV in a OB patient going in for a c-section while I was in my L&D rotation.

Trauma_drama14, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN, NP · Dec 9, 2015

We did, we would practice on the mannequin amd practice in clinicals... And this was jusy two years ago.

Anna Flaxis, BSN, RN · Dec 9, 2015

We practiced on plastic arms and were checked off in the skills lab, and once checked off, could practice in clinical on real patients. We did not practice on one another.

applewhitern, BSN, RN · Dec 9, 2015

I learned in school. We had to start IV's on each other during nursing school, and also on our patients in the hospital during clinicals. This is why a lot of hospitals don't want to hire new grads~ it cost a ton of money to orient new grads and then still have to teach them stuff they should have learned in nursing school.

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Dec 9, 2015

I first learned how to start IVs in Paramedic school back in 2000. Back then, we practiced on each other. I figure I lost about 100 mL of blood that day... really, not a lot but considering that we're supposed to occlude the catheter tip, I suppose it was pretty obvious that my partner didn't do something. One good thing that came out of that experience is that if you have catheters that do not have one way valves (even if it's just good for one use), you should have a chux pad under the arm. Then I had to leave EMS for a while and didn't get to start any lines for a very long time.

During nursing school some 14 years later, we did learn IV starts but that was well after learning how to manage IV lines right up to, but not including, actually starting the line. Once we were ready to do IV starts, we already knew how to manage the rest of the "stuff." I'm now getting good (again) at doing IV starts. Sure I could start a line, but it just takes time and lots of sticks to get good at nailing the difficult ones.

AdobeRN · Dec 9, 2015

We had a skills lab - practiced on manniquins. Our instructors also made sure all of us had a day in pre-op day surgery for the purpose of starting IV's. We were exposed to it but for me I really didn't "learn" how to insert IV's until I started working - the first few weeks of my internship I was pulled to start just about every IV on the floor.