Marti17

wow i did not expect to get so many responses, and really all are on a positive side of this idea, I mean the whole idea makes sense and with more evidence based practice I would think this would or could be a more common thing, again I am still in nursing school, have done a few IV starts, some good some not so good, and in a couple of those not so good I think this technique would have been useful!. I will ask my instructors when I go back to classes after summer break about this also, but i know nursing school teaches us things based off of a perfect world, and as long as I have been at it being a nursing student i have seen there is no real such thing! Infiltration is the only major risk of the actually process, but if one is paying attention, as a good nurse should, then that shouldn't happen or at least be really bad, and if good technique is used risk for infection should also be to a minimum. Our main goal as nurses is to take care of the patient and to do as little harm during invasive procedures as possible, so I personally see no reason not to try this if the situation needs.. Thank you to all of you who have responded so far and I look forward to any other responses. I can not wait till I can stick RN behind my name, be part of so many awesome people who love to help others!

I have a question about a new IV start technique I was told about this evening. A bit of background for me, I am still a nursing student half way through my second try at nursing school, Failing out of a BSN school spring of last year and now in a Community College ADN program, anyway my wife and I had dinner this evening with some friends of ours who's wife is in Nursing school at my old BSN college, there are some new instructors there since my time at the school, anyway we were talking IV's and she mentioned "floating" in the IV on a patient with difficult veins and dehydration. This is something I had never heard of and so I went on an internet search for this technique, it brought me to allnurses.com to an old post from 2007 that spoke briefly about "floating" IV's, three of the four nurses that responded to that post did not like the idea of it. I am skeptical of it myself, I get the Idea of how it could help advance a catheter into a vein that is difficult but also the risks involved with it. I was hoping for some new responses to this idea, i am on summer break from my nursing school to ask any of my instructors about this but either way would like the opinion of the many knowledgeable nurses on this site. Thank You