No IVs in my Nursing School, opinions please?

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Hi,

I just found out that we as students will not be starting IV's and that this is an advanced skill that will be acquired after I graduate.

I've read other posts were students are starting IV's so I am wondering is it just because my hospital has their own IV team, or is it a "sucky" nursing school?

I kind of feel dissappointed. I had assumed that this would be a very basic Nursing skill I would learn.

Any one care to comment? Is this the norm? :(

Even if you do learn IV in school, you'd still need to take up an IV course so you can acquire your IV license. Nurses w/o IV licenses aren't allowed to practice IV.

I never heard of that before! I thought RN's can do it but LPN's need special certification.

No, that isn't true.

Specializes in Telemetry/Med Surg.

We didn't start IV's in school---I learned that on orientation to my nursing position.

Specializes in ICU, Med/Surg, Tele.

Our instructors say its up to if the nurse at clinical will let you do one..we do not practice in lab tho. So basically if the nurse lets you, you can..and if not we learn it after we graduate...:uhoh3: somehow to me that makes no sense..

Specializes in Corrections, neurology, dialysis.

I heard that nursing schools in general don't let students start IVs because of liability issues. As far as I know it's not all that unusual.

This just isn't true. I suppose this is possible if the patient is an easy stick. But a lot of patients are not easy sticks because their vasculature is shot.

I've seen nurses have to resort to putting IV's the feet (which usually is a big no no) because neither the paramedics nor the ER nurses could get an IV any other way ... and the patient was coding.

I've also seen up to five experienced RN's fail to get sticks on some patients, and they had to call in ICU and nurses from other departments to try to get it.

This is why, IMHO, it's really important to get at least some IV skills practice in nursing school.

:typing

I didn't say all IV's were easy. I said, it's not that hard to start IV's. One day rounding with the IV therapist will get the OP right up to speed. So I feel she shouldn't sweat it.

I'm not naive about difficult IV's...you've seen IV's put in the feet by nurses--I've seen IV's put in the jugular while we were out in the field. You do what you have to do.

To follow your own logic...

you said it's really important to get at least some IV skills practice in nursing school, but you preceded it by saying you've seen five experienced RN's fail a stick and call in The Big Guns from ICU. Doesn't that pan out to experience does not = successful IV sticks? Which is what I was saying. Relax about it. Does it really make any difference if she did 5 sticks in nursing school or 0, if experienced nurses can't get IV's either.

Specializes in Pediatrics.

I teach in 2 schools, neither of which teach their students to start IVs. I don't see it as something we should be consuming our time on. I think it would be an extremely lenghty process (Jeez, many have trouble with vital signs, I couldn't even imagine doing IV starts). You will learn it, if you need to, when you work. I have hardly started IVs in my career. And if it was something I learned how to do in nursing school, 12 years ago, it would do me no good now. You need to keep up the skill in order to stay proficient at it.

Specializes in Telemetry/Med Surg.
I didn't say all IV's were easy. I said, it's not that hard to start IV's. One day rounding with the IV therapist will get the OP right up to speed. So I feel she shouldn't sweat it.

Not necessarily true either. The concept of the IV's is certainly simple enough. I spent 3 days with an IV nurse inserting/trying to insert IV's in pre op patients when I was on orientation for RN. some you get, some you don't. A lot of variables. I happen to work in a hospital with a large elderly population whose veins rock and roll, are dehydrated, etc. etc. etc. I give myself two tries and then I'll call in someone else. One won't necessarily get it by spending 'one day rounding with the IV therapist'.

I'm a junior working on my BSN. I live in Idaho where there must be less worry about law suits. I have done about 20 IV starts in my clinicals already. I have only missed a couple of times. Let me say, it is a great self esteem booster because that is a SKILL. I do think it is something that one could pick after graduation just fine, but it is so great to have highly trained professors there to help you and cheer you on.

we have IV therapy class. at the end we get tested and get IV certification. we are just about done. I take my certification test 11/28, we graduate 12/12 the count down is own.:balloons: :balloons: :uhoh3:

To follow your own logic...

you said it's really important to get at least some IV skills practice in nursing school, but you preceded it by saying you've seen five experienced RN's fail a stick and call in The Big Guns from ICU. Doesn't that pan out to experience does not = successful IV sticks? Which is what I was saying. Relax about it. Does it really make any difference if she did 5 sticks in nursing school or 0, if experienced nurses can't get IV's either.

Yeah ... it does.

Even though we have to get signed off on five sticks, I've done a hellava lot more than that in nursing school. And that gives me a much better shot at getting those difficult sticks.

Everybody's busy. RN's don't have time to teach you IV's, and they don't have a lot of time to do your IV's either. They have their own patients to worry about. And you really don't have time to learn them from scratch and do everything else you've got to do either.

I personally don't want to bother other RN's to do my IV's unless I absolutely have to. Sure ... I probably will need their help sometimes. But the skills practice helps me keep that to a minimum.

I would not want to be wasting their time on basics when I hit the floor.

:typing

Im in an LPN program in KY and we started IVs this semester (2nd out of 3). We also get to do them in clinicals whenever the situation presents itself.

(with nurse or instructor supervision and guidence of course!)

The first one I got with a little bit of poking around, the second one I did, I got flash back but them the vein blew, but I didnt feel too badly about it since it took my instructor two tries, the kid was very sick and dehydrated, very hard stick.

But, yeah, I've heard lots of schools dont let students do IVs. And lots of nurses have told me that you just learn it as you go once you are working as a nurse.

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