Not sure where to post this but I saw something today in clinical that was just eating me up. My school has an agreement with a few clinical sites to allow students to return to clinical early, and I saw something today that made me very uncomfortable. A nurse allowed myself and another student to go into her (sedated) patient's room, and offered to let us start an IV. IV insertion is strictly prohibited and the clinical coordinator specifically told us not to even attempt it, as it can result in "major consequences". I told this to the nurse, but my classmate decided to try to insert the IV anyway. The classmate poked the patient 1, then 2, then 3.... until the nurse finally stopped her, at 7 attempts. 7 insertions, including one on a different site which was not cleaned.
The school's clinical coordinator showed up on site about 30 minutes after the event, and she asked me if we had gotten to do any IVs. I had the feeling that she knew about it, and I told her about my classmates IV attempts. It turns out that she had no idea about the event, she just happened to show up and ask. She was angry at me for reporting it and told me not to tell anyone about it, or there would be consequences. The student and I are paired to go into the ED this week, and she was going on about how she hopes that we'll have more tries at starting IVs and that she'll make sure I can do it next.
I have no idea what to do. I feel that if I report it further, the clinical coordinator will do something to take it out on me. I can't stop thinking about how that patient was sedated and didn't have any idea a student was involved in their care, the potential pain, or the risk of infection from all of those repeated insertions, including a site that wasn't cleaned at all.
