Morphine

[parin]

Hello,

Can you, or should you rather, administer IV morphine?

[Surprised1, MSN, RN]

The only possible reason I can think of is that your instructor didn't want you, as a student, to push morphine. It's a common restriction for students, for good reason. Other than that, I cannot for the life of me think why a nurse would say not to give IV morphine!

[loriangel14, RN]

Giving it IV doesn't necessarily mean it was being pushed.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

If the pt has IV access, no way am I sticking him with an extra unnecessary needle to give him his meds.

Not sure where you are, but people can even be on a continuous morphine infusion, plus PCA (patient-controlled analgesia--pt has a button connected to the pump that he pushes to give himself a dose from the pump) or prn's administered by the RN. Although morphine is used for this relatively rarely compared to Dilaudid or fentanyl, but it's the same principle--IV narcotic continuously infusing plus the PCA or RN-administered extra doses.

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

I know this wasn't in the OP's order, but IM is also a choice…given that way fairly frequently in ED when there is no other indication for establishing IV access.

[Surprised1, MSN, RN]

Giving it IV doesn't necessarily mean it was being pushed.

True! No more posting when I've been awake for almost 24 hours--

Sent from my iPhone using allnurses

[psu_213, BSN, RN]

No more posting when I've been awake for almost 24 hours--

At the risk of infringing on someone else's name on here…"been there, done that," and never a good idea

[Karou]

Did the instructor think you wanted to administer it, as in yourself? Because some schools have a strict policy against IVP medications, or specifically IV narcotics.

Otherwise I have no idea why she would freak out.