New Grad and P.I.C.C. class

[mschelee, MSN, RN]

Hi, I am a new grad and I signed up to take PICC class at my local college. It is to cover Inserting and caring for the device. I emailed the teacher asking if this would be a good class to take but didnt get a response, so I signed up and paid. The class is tomorrow Am. I got an email later (too late to cancel) and her response was that the course would be no good without IV skills. (she also teaches an IV course). So I am now wondering if I wasted my money? Should I still attend the course? It cost $285... I wanted to take the course because I am interested in Hospice nursing (have hospice experience) and Hospice deals with PICC lines often.

So now..should I attend? I cannot get a refund...but will I be horribly confused? They did teach us IV's in school, and yes we did start IV's on patients in clinicals..

Mschelee

[Chell]

Mschelee,

I don't think that you will have wasted your money if you attend the PICC class. Yes you need some IV experience but placement of a PICC is completely different than placing a peripheral IV. If you learn nothing else the information on maintinance of the line will be very helpful to in you daily practice. Care and maintinance is the most important part of PICC line anyway.

Chell

[mschelee, MSN, RN]

Yes. I attended the class and was a bit disapointed. We mostly did the legal aspect of infiltrations, informed consent. Types of catheters, dressing changes. We did all this in school. We were shown diagrams of the veins for PICC insertion, and looked on ourt partners to find the veins. We did NOT practice inserting a PICC line. Not even one time. I expected to practice on a simulation arm, or computer like in school, we do this for PIV's. But we did not. I got a certificate, not a certification. I had looked at some cert classes that do the whole cert, including simulations and a post exam, and the were around $300. My class was $285.

Oh well, I definitely learned, just not what I expected and not worth the price, and the instructor had serveral new grad/ recert RN's there.