where do you learn blood draws

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My instructors told us that as students we will not learn how to draw blood or start IV's. That we'll need IV competency certification.

I wanted to ask is this normal in schools? They did tell us that everyone will have a chance to insert Foley's and shadow a nurse manager. But not learning or practicing drawing blood or IV's worries me..who will hire a nurse who can't draw blood?

Thanks all! I feel better in one way but a little concerned about needing to be so good on an interview, but that's good to know now. We have dummies in our lab so I hope we at least will practice on them. Parker what you say makes sense now about money/liability..unfortunately.

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Very normal and completely backwards. I still don't understand why this is not taught in school. My sister is a phlebotomist and her program taught her so, it seems completely ridiculous nursing programs don't teach us. I understand that perhaps practicing on each other may be a bit of a no no today, but why don't we learn during clinicals? I had to start my first job with NO IV experience....kinda sucks. They taught me how to start them but, why do we need to rely on our jobs to teach us what we should know going in the door???

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

Not at all unusual for schools to not teach this. I. like so many others, learned venipuncture on the job. Never did get any real IV skills, but where I work I've also not really needed IV skills.

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I know of many programs don't teach venipuncture/IV insertion anymore. I was fortunate that my program taught venipuncture as a skill on a fake arm our first semester, then if we got the opportunity we could do it on real patients in clinicals. During my last semester our clinical group also had the opportunity to do 2 full days in the interventional radiology department at our clinical site, which was extremely helpful because we just inserted IVs all day. It was pretty stressful as a student though. That said when I was hired at the hospital I work at now, our orientation included a day in the lab drawing blood all day, and a day in ED inserting IVs all day, so they didn't expect us to be proficient upon being hired.

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Specializes in Allergy/ENT, Occ Health, LTC/Skilled.

They didn't teach us blood draws either while I was in LPN school. Got a shock when I was going to be the only nurse in a clinic doing blood draws lol. We only averaged 5 draws/day but I got good real quick because I was it for awhile. I used a lot of you tube videos for tricks on those difficult to stick. I don't think many people are ever trained blood draws in school.

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Specializes in LTC.

I learned in a certification course after graduation.

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Specializes in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

If you can get anywhere near an ED during a clinical rotation you will be run ragged doing IVs -- except if you aren't allowed to (we can't do anything on kids, however). We were not able to start doing anything with IVs and IV meds until the 3rd quarter (Med-Surg II) and I got my one and only IV start then. Once we got into ICU, however, I spent many days in the ED and I have lost count of how many I have started (and how many more I have failed at -- my confidence was getting pretty shaken).

If you haven't been asked this question by a clinical preceptor yet, consider it carefully: what are your goals? When you get hired (which, as others have pointed out, should be your main focus) and are on orientation, emphasize that one of your goals is to master IVs (blood draws are much more simpler, too, FWIW). Your preceptor should be calling dibs on everyone's IV starts and having you do them until you demonstrate some mastery of them. I am far from being a master at it but now that I am so much more comfortable with the set up and how to find a good vein, I feel much more competent at doing them, thanks to all my wonderful ED preceptors who showed me the infinite ways of starting a successful IV (and this was going from less than zero ability to feeling pretty confident in a few days, if that helps).

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Specializes in Pedi.
Very normal and completely backwards. I still don't understand why this is not taught in school. My sister is a phlebotomist and her program taught her so, it seems completely ridiculous nursing programs don't teach us. I understand that perhaps practicing on each other may be a bit of a no no today, but why don't we learn during clinicals? I had to start my first job with NO IV experience....kinda sucks. They taught me how to start them but, why do we need to rely on our jobs to teach us what we should know going in the door???

Of course a phlebotomist learns phlebotomy in school, that's what they're in school for. Venipuncture is a good skill for nurses to have, but it's not an essential skill to graduate with. I have worked with nurses who have been nurses for 20 years and don't do venipunctures.

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Specializes in Allergy/ENT, Occ Health, LTC/Skilled.
Of course a phlebotomist learns phlebotomy in school, that's what they're in school for. Venipuncture is a good skill for nurses to have, but it's not an essential skill to graduate with. I have worked with nurses who have been nurses for 20 years and don't do venipunctures.

I worked with someone who was a nurse for 25 years at that point. Had to show her the ropes for when I was on vacation. She wasn't happy and had a hard time, she just never had to do it in her field till then.

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Specializes in ER.

I learned blood draws as a tech. I learned IV inserts as a paramedic. We did cover them during nursing school. I perfected them to a degree working in an ER as a paramedic. As newer nurses, they would send some nurses to the emergency room or to surgery to perform 20 to 50 IV starts. I find it amusing that they are not teaching IV skills. To be fair, some areas use IVs more often than others. In the ER, I can start 20+ a day. On the floor, the IVs may last for 3 or 4 days so there is no need to change them out.

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Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

I was taught by a physician office staff originally as nurses we spun blood for hematocrit and sent serum to an outside lab for analysis. Years later, I attended a phlebotomy course for certification in blood withdrawal. We did the sticks on each other. I don't think the fake arms were invented at that time.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

As for me, I learned blood draws when I took an IV cert class after completing my LVN program. It was a 4 day course and I did several successful sticks.

In my work as an LVN, I didn't have the chance to start IVs, as the facility utilized an outside lab to perform these.

When I started my RN completion program, during term 1, the instructor allowed us to start IVs as long as she or a nurse would supervise us. I had an opportunity! Yeah! It was successful!

I was kind of surprised and dismayed to find out while in my 3rd term of 4 at the same RN school that IV starts are not a skill you are expected to do during clinicals.

I wonder how nurses without a background in which they were taught IV starts, learn how to do these?

But, as commuter said, it's a technical skill that can be taught later!

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