Question about compazine

[DMANDE48]

Hi. Hope I'm posting in an appropriate place. I'm a CMA student doing my practicum in a pain management practice. On my first day of practicum, a walk-in patient was given an IV injection (via butterfly) of compazine. I was observing the administration and walked away with a few questions. Didn't feel extremely comfortable asking my preceptor, who was administering.

It was administered as follows: Pt was suffering a migraine, she was escorted to exam room and was lying on exam table when given med. CMA placed tourniquet on arm, drew a small amount of blood to remove air from line. She then left tourniquet on and began to push the compazine. She left it on for almost 4 minutes during the administration and then just before finishing, popped the tourniquet. She then flushed the line with saline and removed the needle and applied pressure.

My questions may be trivial, but being a newbie, I'm confused. We were taught in school that you never leave a tourniquet on for any reason, longer than one minute. Are there exceptions to this that were left out? It also seems to me that if you want to push something slowly by butterfly IV, you wouldn't leave a tourniquet in place. My thought is that you are reducing the flow and causing it to remain in the confined area between the needle and the tourniquet. If this is what is happening, when you remove the tourniquet, will it not just rush into the patient's system?

Any insight and education that is offered will be greatly appreciated!

[brownbook]

All I can say is after 23 years of nursing what you saw makes no sense to me? What you were taught in school is still correct as far as I know?

Could you ask this CMA in a polite, "I'm just curious and want learn," tone of voice why she gave it that way? If she gives you some plausible answer tell her you would like to see book or journal that shows this is a correct way to do it so you can educate your teacher and classmates.