stitches

[ROCKONTULL]

Are RN's allowed to do stitches themselves?

[Transplant Nurse, BSN, RN]

Good topic and engaging discussion, so much that I couldn't 'get away' without adding my 2 cents worth. :)

I used to travel with the transplant teams and stitched all of the donors post-op (also happens to be post-mortem) All incisions were large and covered the whole torso. Prior to that I soutured a lot with the tissue team and I have always thought it was 'fun' because it is something you can do and leave a nice touch (eg messy vs. pretty stitch). On the organ donors they were still alive (heart alive but brain dead) and we'd perform sugrical cut-down to get lymph nodes and they would do cross-matching with recipients before we actually took them to the O.R. [Thankfully this helps detect rejection in people before transplantation and in essence prevents a lot of graft failures].

Anyway, I was dissecting right next to the femoral artery, and sometimes you'd get a real fiesty arteriole who'd spurt about a foot in the air. When you are talking about a superficial area I see no reason why nurses could not do this. In my state (Indiana) unless specifically forbidden by the BON, a nurse can be trained to do a lot, but 'trained' implies a paper trail.

Essentially it means someone has signed you off as competent and there are documented cases where you were trained (usually it is >3). No matter what though, when it comes down to it if somebody sues (and you were trained) you and everybody above you will be sued. It is an unfair world where UAP have more autonomy than a nurse, but this is the age we live in. It amazed me when they allowed medtechs to give IM injections. I always wondered who is to teach the patient what to look for? My rant for today is over...