DeterminedOne

Picc Ace - I have competencies on Picc insertion and MST. If you email me with a fax number I will share with you. My email is [email protected] -

We keep the Bard 6Fr on hand in our facility and I have placed them several times - always on ICU patients who were on numerous drips/TPN/etc.. that really required three lumens. I have never had a problem with phlebitis or thrombus with the triple lumens - I attribute that to careful assessment of the patients I use them on. So far, the other Picc nurses at my facility have not placed any of the triple lumens - I think they find them a little scary because they are a larger line. I have never placed two piccs in one arm - that idea is new to me. If I found I needed more lumens I might place a second line in the other arm, or just place a triple lumen. Those of you who are placing two lines in one arm, how can you be sure that both lines don't end up in the same vessel in that arm? I mean, it is possible the way veins sometimes branch into other veins. If that happened I would think that would really increase that risk of phlebitis or thrombus formation.

Hello thewifenwv - I am a RN but did not attend school at MSU - however, my son is attending MSU in their Radiology Tech Program. If their nursing program is anything like their RT program - it should be good. He is getting a lot of clinical experience (even has clinical 3 days a week all summer) and they have clinicals set up at numerous hospitals, even the hospital in our area so he is able to be home while he does clinicals this summer. I plan on checking into MSU's masters program next year when my son is finished. Good luck with school!

Picc lines placed in radiology - In our facility specially trained RNs, including myself, place Picc lines at the bedside; we do this with Site Rite ultrasound machine if needed; when we are unable to gain access, or our catheter won't thread, we ask the radiologist to help us. If the radiologist does the line, a Picc nurse and a radiology tech always assist him. If the problem is gaining venous access, the radiologist usually has us place a periperal IV in the lower arm or hand of the patient so he can push a little contrast through to assist him in finding a vein under fluoro. If the problem is that the line won't thread, then he assists us in getting the line to thread under fluoro. The nurse actually does most of the work of placing the line even when done in radiology. The rad tech pushes the contrast and runs the fluoro, but otherwise does nothing in the placing of the Picc lines. Not all of the radiologists at our facility are interventionalists, so we really only have one who will actually mess with Picc lines at all - but he is also the radiologist that I work with doing angios, so we work well together. (I am a radiology nurse who just happened to be a Picc nurse also!) We have never placed a line in radiology without the radiologist present. This is just the way it has been since we started placing Picc lines at our facility. However, let me point out that we have pretty good success placing Picc lines at the bedside especially since we got out SiteRite. We rarely have to ask our radiologist to place a line under fluoro. I think you will find that who and where Picc lines are placed varies greatly from facility to facility.. There is a website called smartgroups.com (I think) that has a vascular access group on it. I view this site regularly and I find that some facilities place all their Picc lines in radiology, some use radiology only when necessary, etc... Most of the people on this site are nurses and I really haven't heard them mention anything about radiology techs or cardiovascular techs placing picc lines. At our facility, the rad techs and cv techs do not place lines. Hope this helps some and wasn't too confusing!!!

Hi firstmate - I'm not sure why you think you need to go to radiology school to work in the cath lab. If you are a nurse, would you be functioning as a nurse in the cath lab? If so, you would probably be trained by other nurses in the cath lab. Or are you saying you want to work as a radiology tech in the cath lab? If that's the case, then yes you would have to go to radiology or cardiovascular tech school. Nurses can scrub in and assist the physicians with procedures in the cath lab, but where I come from nurses are not allowed to fluoro - so the radiology techs scrub in. I also started as a telemetry nurse many years ago - also did some ICU, supervising, etc... but had no problem at all transitioning to the cath lab. Good luck!