So, we don't learn how to do IVs in nursing school?

[i<3u]

I was told that we would learn this on the job. Is this true?

[anonymousstudent]

No. You should learn everything about it. Now you might not actually get to insert an IV on a patient, but you should have the skill set when you leave school from practicing in lab.

[BacktotheBeach, ADN, BSN, RN]

In my program we have to learn it towards the end. I heard they send us to an outpatient surgery place where we practice it all day. Yikes!!

[ashleyisawesome, BSN, RN]

we do not learn how to put ivs in at all in school.... we learn about giving meds through ivs, but can not start them.. and none of the schools in my area do. its strange.

[tokyoROSE, BSN, RN]

We can practice on a fake arm with blood and all. It isn't very realistic but its good practice anyway.

[JROregon, ASN, BSN, RN]

My school and local hospital group offer a class to nursing students in their last term. We learned how to connect tubing to catheters and do IV pushes in the first year. In our area, there is one hospital where only IV-infusion nurses start IVs and the other hospitals, floor nurses do them along with everything thing else. Not too strange if you never start an IV as more hospitals move to using a dedicated team of infusion nurses.

[lemidora]

In my program they get us to start practicing IVs in lab on mannequins in the second year and then we're allowed to do them on patients at the end of third year.

[SunshineDaisy, ASN, RN]

In my school they teach them in 2nd semester. Not sure when/if they do them on actual patients though since I'm not that far yet!

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

In the program I came from, we were taught in the second quarter of the program (Med-Surg) and refreshed in the fifth (Critical Care), though I didn't actually place IVs in real people until my internship in the ED during my eighth and final quarter. Part of the reason why we didn't is that most of the time, there was no need for a new line on a patient while we were on the floor.

[Zombi RN]

What? No. At least, not in my experience.

During the 10-month LPN I did at a tech school, we learned to insert IVs in lab and were allowed to practice that skill whenever the opportunity arose at clinical.

[<3nursing0329]

At my school we don't learn to do IV's, but that's because all of the hospitals in our area are major hospitals and have IV infusion teams. If I continue working at the hospital I work at now (Fairview), then I will never need to insert an IV anyways.

[ddunnrn]

When I went to school in the Dark Ages (1982-84), they told us, "You'll never need to insert an IV, because there are IV nurses for that." ,and so they didn't teach us. Guess what--they were right! In 25 years of nursing. I have never had to insert an IV, or draw blood for labs, not that I wouldn't have liked to learn.

Dave Dunn, RN