IVPB med disaster

[greatgoku81]

I need help please.

I was supposed to hang an IVPB med. Well the IV med from earlier was gone but the squeeze chamber was all the way full. Ive never seen that before because normally the chamber is only half full or something. Well I pulled the spike out of the empty old IVPB med and the spike starting spurting fluid out of it. I quickly got open the new drug and spiked it on the new bag. My scrubs got wet and I know I messed up big time. She said I am supposed to remember to close the clamp. I guess I didnt do that. What im wondering is what should I have done to do that correctly. Should I have closed the clamp, flip the old bag over and squeeze the extra fluid in the chamber until its empty and then spike the new bag? I am also confused on priming the tubing part. Should I have dropped the piggy back line below the primary line and then open the clamp? my instructor was saying something about lowering the secondary bag below the primary and then flipping it over and squeezing. I just feel like I have no clue what Im doing. I get the new tubing spiking a new bag but the respiking a new med with tubing all hooked up confuses me. Please help:(

[roni221]

We are learning this right now so I'm sure there are other more experienced nurses and even students that can tell you exactly how to do this with extra little tips and stuff. What I wanted to say was to ask for extra help either from your clinical instructor or we have at our school teacher/nurse who's only job is to tutor student so if if you are struggling you can just schedule some time with her and she'll go over skills (or theory) with you. It's a huge asset to us. You should look into something like that. Maybe practicing under less pressure will help solidify the steps for you. It's great preparation to read the book and know your steps but actually practicing with the hardware (iv bags and tubing) will make it automatic. Can't wait to see what advice everyone has for you though, we might both find some good tips.

[Lurksalot, BSN, RN]

Ask your instructor if you may take home a primary IV bag and a smaller piggy-back medicine bag (we had practice ones filled with water, maybe you have something similar?). Take the smaller bag, draw some food coloring up into a syringe, and inject it into the bag to make the piggyback fluid colored--preferrably red(like blood!). Now at home, connect them together, hang them up to gravity, and start raising and lowering them any which way to see what happens. Watch what the fluid does, you will see the red fluid back up into tubing according to position, you'll see the tubing chambers fill up, etc. Try flipping bags over, pretend you are removing it and spiking a new bag, try flushing the line, connect the piggyback to different leurlocks along the primary tubing and see how that works. The point is, take this stuff home or practice in the school lab and get very comfortable with it. Unfortunately, you probably don't get tons of practice during clinical and it is that much more difficult being nervous and watched and wanting so badly to do it correctly.

Good luck, hope that helps a little!