RN's who cannot insert IV's being Fired???

[maidy]

Hello! just wanna know if it is mandatory for all RN's to insert IV's? Because a fellow nurse who is more than well experienced and very skillful in other procedures and previously IV certified too who refused to do IV's was terminated. Nurse claims she developed phobia to it after a very bad experience with a patient. Can a person really be forced to do anything that she is not comfortable and has developed an aversion to it. Is it fair to the hospital and to the nurse? Thanks!

[batgirl23]

IVs are not necessarily a required function of nursing practice. I was never trained in IVs (graduated from Bacchalaureate programme in 1986). Worked in a general hospital for a year where only the IV team started IVs. Have since worked in a Psych hospital for 19 years. No one here starts IVs even if they are skilled and carded elsewhere. We have a hospital policy stating this. Rationale for this is that the incidence of IVs is very low (maybe 3 or 4 patients a year hospital-wide with a need) - very tough for anyone to keep competent in a skill used so infrequently. We are 2 city blocks from a large general hospital so our pts with medical complications are shipped there for stabilization. We don't accept pts with Pick lines either.

[And, please, no cracks about psych nurses not being real nurses!! :icon_roll ]

Having said that, if IVs are a part of your job description you need to be competent in the skill and willing to perform it or be prepared to find another job where it is not necessary - they do exist.

[toadie]

while in nursing school i worked as a cna at a hospital that only allowed a nurse to start an iv after she was certified by the dept of nursing. this required 2 supervised, successful iv sticks. this was such a bad idea because there was no formal iv team. one night on 12p-8a there were no iv certified nurses on the floor and one went bad. the pt had to wait over an hour for a nurse to come from another floor to start the iv.

[irish_std/n]

its so strange to read about nurses and ivs, over here its the doctors job to insert the ivs...we don't do it!!

[PANurseRN1]

Seriously?

[Midwest4me]

I think it's a pretty basic skill but I think being fired is a little too extreme....after all, many nurses are NOT given a thorough IV training in school. Firing a nurse during such a nurse shortage because of lack of IV skills shows utter stupidity on the part of the hospital....they should provide training. Our nearest hospital uses "IV TEAMS"(RNs whose primary job is to insert IVs) to free the "floor RNs" to do other tasks.

[RN4NICU, LPN, LVN]

I think it's a pretty basic skill but I think being fired is a little too extreme....after all, many nurses are NOT given a thorough IV training in school. Firing a nurse during such a nurse shortage because of lack of IV skills shows utter stupidity on the part of the hospital....they should provide training. Our nearest hospital uses "IV TEAMS"(RNs whose primary job is to insert IVs) to free the "floor RNs" to do other tasks.

According to the OP, she wasn't fired because of a lack of IV skills, but rather because of her REFUSAL TO EVEN TRY. I don't care how bad the "shortage" is (if there was one - but that is another debate), we should not accept substandard nurses who REFUSE TO EVEN TRY to better themselves. It was never stated that the hospital refused to provide training. It was only stated that the nurse refused to start IVs. I don't see any stupidity on the part of the hospital there -- there will always be another nurse out there who WILL be willing to do his/her job to the best of his/her ability. I see only stupidity on the part of the nurse, who is not willing to even attempt to get over her own issues for the good of her patients (who need their IV - with less delay being better than more) and her fellow staff members (who are having to pick up the slack and do her work for her, in addition to their own).

[lndrnsandi]

Barbyann....I'd have to say your situation is different. When everyone pulls together as a team, and bolsters each other, you have a much better system....which is what it sounds like you have. For a nurse to say, "I won't do that anymore"? It's time to go work outside of the hospital, honey, where you won't have to have that in your job description.

[smk1, LPN]

refusal to try is different than not being able to. I still worry though that some of the "older" nurses are going to form opinions of the newbies because of things like this. All of us really WANT to learn this skill on real people and not just the fake people and arms in the lab. We just most likely won't get the opportunity. I certainly will take a class after graduation and Licensing if i see one. I think the hospital either needs to have IV teams well staffed and there around the clock or not at all. I can just see getting certified and then almost never having the opportunity or practice to insert them and then getting a bad evaluation because a situation comes up and i'll be out of practice.

[barbyann]

lndrnsandi......thanks for your support. I would never refuse to try and perform any task in my job description. It is interesting to note that when I started with this hospital there was an IV team in place. So they never trained me formally. Then, out of the blue they announced, "budget cuts" "no more IV team" and threw us out there underprepared. Thankfully I do work in a team atmosphere and my coworkers are very supportive. Now, just this week, I learned that there is no more medical equipment on the night shift. This means I have to now learn how to apply a trapeze to a bed. What is next........will I be processing my own lab work and taking my own xrays? My job description gets longer every year. sigh.....I hate change.

[veronica butterfly, ADN, RN]

I do think it depends on where you work to some extent. If you're pre-op, duh, you gotta do it. Like a receptionist who refuses to answer phones... Where I work some nurses are really good at it and some aren't so good. If we have a patient whose veins look easy, any of the nurses will do the IV, but if the patient looks like they'll be a really hard stick, the nurse will go get the "pro" or get another nurse to go in with them. Sometimes two pairs of eyes looking for the right vein is better than a solo pair. I think refusing to do anything is not a good sign, you have to be flexible and a team player to be a nurse!!

A nurse I worked with was terrified of doing IV's after having several really bad experiences. She was able to go hang out with a day surgery nurse/pre-op one day and got a ton of experience. Now SHE'S the pro we call when the rest of us are nervous!!

[PANurseRN1]

refusal to try is different than not being able to. I still worry though that some of the "older" nurses are going to form opinions of the newbies because of things like this. All of us really WANT to learn this skill on real people and not just the fake people and arms in the lab. We just most likely won't get the opportunity. I certainly will take a class after graduation and Licensing if i see one. I think the hospital either needs to have IV teams well staffed and there around the clock or not at all. I can just see getting certified and then almost never having the opportunity or practice to insert them and then getting a bad evaluation because a situation comes up and i'll be out of practice.

Please do not characterize "older" nurses as being typically difficult to new nurses. New nurses can be just as hard on their own.

There is no room for ageism in this profession.

[Midwest4me]

Obviously I was not making myself clear. I'm WELL aware that the nurse described by the OP was refusing to try to insert the IV. I also never said that the OP said the hospital refused to provide training. I was making a general remark; I do know of hospitals that DO PROVIDE SUCH TRAINING.