Never placed an IV!!!!!

[LoriZ342]

I'm not sure what to do and this sounds ridiculous! I just started a new position and realized I have never placed an IV and I have never stuck anyone for blood - my last job had IV team and phlebotomy. Does anyone have any advice how to learn very quickly!! I looked at community colleges but they only offer courses that last weeks...I need to learn asap! Thanks for any advice you have to offer.

[T-Bird78]

I'm happy to say that my technical college did teach IVs and blood draws and we're LPNs. We practiced on fake arms (the school's insurance wouldn't let us practice on each other) but my preceptor at a clinical rotation and teacher let me practice on them--just placing the cath and stopping when I got good flash. I never did it in the real world and that's hurting my job search, even though I tell them I did it in nursing school and know I can pick it up again when I actually get to do it.

[vintage_RN, BSN, RN]

I'm in first semester of nursing school and we we're told that we will learn how to maintain an iv line, how to discontinue one...but not how to start one. Why? They said our future workplaces should teach us or we can take a separate course through the college...im not sure why they don't include it.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Fact is you probably won't need to know how to start IVs nearly as much as how to use them, trouble-shoot them, and maintain them safely-- especially in your student clinical time.

I know students get really excited about the tasks they think are so important, like "giving shots," starting IVs, and placing catheters and NG tubes, but trust me: We teach these, and more complex tasks, to lay people all the time. You will have far, far more experience at all of those in your first three months on the job and it won't matter a tinker's dam* whether you ever had a chance to practice one while a student.

*TOS worriers: before you blank it out, look it up. It's not profanity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker

^"A Tinker's dam". usingenglish.com

^John Bonner, George William Curtis (1905).

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

Fact is you probably won't need to know how to start IVs nearly as much as how to use them, trouble-shoot them, and maintain them safely-- especially in your student clinical time.

I know students get really excited about the tasks they think are so important, like "giving shots," starting IVs, and placing catheters and NG tubes, but trust me: We teach these, and more complex tasks, to lay people all the time. You will have far, far more experience at all of those in your first three months on the job and it won't matter a tinker's dam* whether you ever had a chance to practice one while a student.

Agreed. I was one of those worriers about tasks when I first started. Trouble-shooting has become a much more important "task" than textbook placement. In short order, the tasks themselves become easy and take a rightful backseat to assessment, recognition of a patient in trouble (or who will be in trouble if we don't act), nursing interventions for patient "irritants" that don't need medical intervention as a first line, understanding labs and what needs to be reported ASAP, etc.