is it safe?

I have taken a syringe et used it to aspirate air from tubing before. As long as you are careful about it et do not contaminate anything I do not see what the problem is. Your syringe is sterile when you open it. I had a clinical teacher who taught me that you can do it right by the port et then you are not wasting any of the fluid.

thanks...

I've also used a syringe to do this as well. The primary reason I do it this way, is simply because it looks a lot better to the patient and any family members in the room when it needs to be done, as opposed to standing there and kinking the tubing.

But I'm a nit-pick so

I don't understand...did the nurse aspiriate the patient's blood from the IV and then push it into the tubing thereby mixing it with the donor's blood? That doesn't sound right to me...

I don't understand...did the nurse aspiriate the patient's blood from the IV and then push it into the tubing thereby mixing it with the donor's blood? That doesn't sound right to me...

No, when you use this method to clear air, you are kinking the tubing below the port you're attached to so that when you aspirate, you are pulling the air (and some fluid) from the tubing ABOVE into your syringe. This clears any air from above your port, and I usually then just discard the syringe if I just have IVF running...but you can unkink the line and just inject the syringe (minus the trapped air which is now closest to the plunger) if its a hanging med that you don't want to waste.

I do this when an IV bag has nearly run dry (we hang by gravity most of the time), and instead of repriming, you can just put up the new bag and pull out any air with your syringe.