IV's

I was just wondering if you guys that are training in the US (or anywhere else) are allowed to give IV drugs, and take blood?

in the UK we are not allowed to. all we are allowed to do is put up fluids. We can draw up IV drugs but not administer. IV and taking bloods/canulating are post-registration courses.

[LauraLou]

Every program may be different but my school doesn't allow students to give IV push medication or do blood transfusions.

[Fiona59]

It all depends on where you work and the hospitals policy. As an LPN (your old SEN) in one province I can adminster IV drugs, the one I currently live in lets me hand fluids (NS etc) only.

Many places I've worked had IV teams who were RN's who started all the IVs for a certain area of the hospital.

I'm eligible to take a course to start IV's in patients but haven't bothered because my employers wouldn't let me use it.

[abundantjoy07, RN]

At my school we can't give IV meds until our senior year and only under the instruction and observation of the RN.

[klone, MSN, RN]

Yes, we're allowed to give IV PB meds in 3rd and 4th semester. I don't think we're allowed to give IVPs, though.

[UTRN2005]

At my school we do all IV stuff in our 2nd semester. We can give IV push, IVPB, Start Peripheral IVs, give meds and flushes through central lines. Our instructor is there watching while we do all this. We can't give any central line meds in our peds class but that the hospital policy not the school's (and they're looking at changing the policy) We can do blood draws too.

[Aneroo, LPN]

In our second semester, we can do IV starts, hang meds, and IVPB's (with instructor). Third semester we can go IV pushes. By our senior semester we can starts IV's without an instructor, and our instructor can check off our meds (this is all at our instructors discretion). -Andrea

[twarlik]

The only thing we can't do is hang blood products. We start IVs, draw blood, IVP...everything. We do everything starting in the first semester.

[shape0fmyheart]

We're not even learning how to start IVs in my program. But we do IV meds, pushes and hanging.

[Altra, BSN, RN]

We give IV meds, including push meds beginning in our 3rd semester (3rd of 6).We learn to start lines in our critical care course. We can't hang blood, however. In my state only RNs can hang blood, not students, not LPNs.

[HappyNurse2005, RN]

WE can do all things IV-IV push, IV PB, etc. Cannot hang blood though, but we can do everything except actually connect the tubing to the patient. Well, we can't confirm the unit of blood, since that has to be done by 2 RN's.

[Aneroo, LPN]

We can hang blood, but when i've done it, the primary RN and my instructor were there for the hanging, and instructor was there in case a reaction occured. The primary RN and instructor checked off the blood, and I observed. -Andrea