IV's

[sofaraway04]

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.

[Nurseboy1]

At my ADN program we were taught IVs and Phlebotomy in the third semester. After that we were expected to draw any and all labs that the patient's required. We were also expected to give IVP and IVPB drugs, we also maintained any running drips and hung new bags as needed. The only drugs we were not allowed to hang were presser agents. We could not push code drugs as well. We were also required to start any IVs that the patient required. We were allowed to participate in the double-check process for blood products and once the products were verified we were able to hang the products and do the monitoring for possible transfusion reactions.

[CarVsTree]

It's funny how much this varies from state to state and from school to school. I saw in this thread that a poster from Pittsburgh PA starts IV's. We are not taught or allowed to start IV's or draw blood. It would put tuition through the roof is the answer r/t insurance charges.

I work in a hospital as a tech and do about 30-50 blood draws per week so at least I'm getting a lot of practice with finding good veins. In addition, we have a lot of tough sticks because we are a trauma unit. When no one can get an IV started med-evac team comes and does it. So I get to see how they work miracles and ask questions about flight nursing. Very cool.

[mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP]

We do it all starting with semester #1. The 2 main hospitals that we go to are huge teaching hospitals to begin with, so they are used to students (nurses and drs.). The kicker is....there always has to be a nurse or your instructor present regarding anything to do with an IV. As far as blood goes, I think we can do everything, we just have to have our instructor and then the proper amount of nurses present as well. Again, they are used to students so they let you do a lot of stuff under the strict supervision of an RN and your instructor which is nice because I don't want to be doing this stuff for the 1st time as a GN :)

[Jill1215]

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.

We could do all of the above from the get go. We had to be checked off on med administration like our 8th week of first semester and then we were ready for action. With the professor watching, of course.

[sun1shine1]

We learned IVs in our 3rd (of 6) clinicals. We can do it all except verify blood (2 RN's) and physically connect the blood to the pt. Even though we just started clinicals this semester (Mardi Gras delayed us a bit ), my instructors this semester have already turned me loose for the most part. They usually watch you do it until they think that you know what you're doing. I still have to start a peds IV with my instructor, but after that I'll be free to do it myself.

Somebody mentioned that the school's insurance would go up if they were trained to do IVs. Do you not have to purchase your own malpractice insurance?

Also I don't think that I could have physically or mentally done IVs during my first semester (Basic Nursing Process and Health Assessment). The whole nursing school thing and the nursing process were just too new. We weren't even taught basic med admin until the 2nd semester.

Ash