this morning after giving report, i was walking towards the lounge and noticed a call light on. i go in there, and ask the mom "may i help you with something?" and she and the bsn nursing student answer "the iv is beeping"
so i go and look at it, and the student mentions to me "the iv bag is empty" so i said "ok no problem" and i go to the iv pump to go and put in the new bag next to it. then the student says "oh, i was gonna do it"
so i said it was ok, i would be there to watch him do it.
he took the bag, and looked at it, like as if he's never seen an empty ivf bag before...... and i said "ok, i do it like this..." showing him how to do it, and he asked me "wont the fluid come out (of the chamber)?" and i said "no, it won't it's ok".... then he did it the way i showed him.
and i think to myself that this is a bsn student, and they have already done medsurg before and he didn't even know how to spike a new iv bag.
i was spiking iv bags, priming, giving piggyback megs, flushing iv's the first semester of nursing school. and mind you, i went thru an asn program.
i don't understand why a bsn student from a state school would not know how to do this by the peds semester.
anyways, i heard their instructor telling the charge nurse "the students are doing everything but meds"
so back to the student, isn't spiking an iv a skill that they should know by the peds semester?
btw that school-bsn- has a 78% pass rate on nclex-rn exam, and my school has a 98%-asn-)
Our school doesn't learn how to "spike IV's" (I'm not really sure what that means. Insert an IV, right?) until second year. At least, I know we don't do something with IV's until our second year. Year one: First quarter is basic skills (AM care, take blood pressure, get urine sample, etc); Second quarter is assesssments; Third quarter is meds. I don't know the exact sequence of second year, but that's how our school goes.
I think we all feel you've made your point: the student shouldn't have said that he knew how to spike the bag when he didn't, in fact, know how. Feel better?
have you read all the other responses?! a lot of responses had not gotten my point.
I agree. Her point wasn't against bsn/asn students. It wasn't that she was a poor teacher. She came to vent and this post has gone on long enough. As a student and as a nurse don't say you know how to do something when you don't..Let's all move on?
thank you! you are just one of a very few people who actually understood my OP, I guess that is why it kept going for so long! LOL
not sure what your point is. i didn't spike a bag until my second or third clinical rotation. i had done it in skills lab, but not in the actual hospital. i think that students, no matter what type of program they go through are going to be very cautious about doing things, especially in peds.
everyone is different, some are fast learners, some aren't. i am book smart, i breezed through nursing school with straight a's without much effort. i am smart on the floor too, but i wouldn't say i am a fast learner. the way my brain works i have to understand why i am doing something and try to visualize the mechanics of it all, it may take me a minute of checking things out, but if i understand the logic behind something i know it for always. i am a little ocd about things at work too.
one thing i learned once i started working my job is that your degree doesn't matter. i am not sure of anyones nursing degree except for mine and the people i went to school with. it has no bearing on how fast you learn or how good of a nurse you are. i think being open, nonjudgemental, caring, and thorough make you a good nurse.
this response and a lot of other responses don't get what my point is!! lol
nothing against the student, just that he said he was doing something that he didn't know how to.
I think we all feel you've made your point: the student shouldn't have said that he knew how to spike the bag when he didn't, in fact, know how. Feel better?
I think that you should just be writing for yourself... because "we" is just you and a couple of other responses.
Not all feel that I've made my point. lots of responses still dont' get what I am writing eventhough I've written it over and over:banghead:
Specializes in Did the job hop, now in MS. Not Bad!!!!!.
I think that you should just be writing for yourself... because "we" is just you and a couple of other responses.
Not all feel that I've made my point. lots of responses still dont' get what I am writing eventhough I've written it over and over:banghead:
Patty, for your own health and anxiety level, please let this go. I think this thread helped to expose a lot of good points. But you need to let others have their say without taking each one so personally. You are on the attack. If this is how you react on the job, you will find yourself alienating a lot of people who can make your days (or nights) difficult. This is a small issue. As my dad likes to say, "is this the hill you want to die on?" In other words, pick your battles.
Our school doesn't learn how to "spike IV's" (I'm not really sure what that means. Insert an IV, right?) until second year. At least, I know we don't do something with IV's until our second year. Year one: First quarter is basic skills (AM care, take blood pressure, get urine sample, etc); Second quarter is assesssments; Third quarter is meds. I don't know the exact sequence of second year, but that's how our school goes.
"Spiking the bag" is putting the large, pointy plastic end of the tubing set into the bag of IV fluids. It's the kind of thing that's so basic that after you've done a few thousand, it's hard to recall that it is a skill and has to be learned--until you get a bag or bottle of fluids you've never seen before. Bottles need a vented tubing set, some solutions need filters, and sometimes there are different sorts of caps on the access ports. There is no shame in saying, "I've never done this before, could you walk me through it?" The person you ask may later say to other nurses, "Can you believe he didn't even know how to spike a bag?" and this will probably lead to some amusing stories about times others have spiked their first bags.
I think most of us would think of "inserting IVs" as placing the canula in the vein, which is quite another matter. For a lucky few, that skill seems to come pretty naturally, but many of us have to work at it. It's not a particularly complicated process, but requires a fair amount of dexterity.
If I may take a couple more swats at this poor horse, I think the student in the original post was wrong to want to appear less green than he actually was. No harm done here, but there are plenty of times when one must swallow one's pride and say "I don't know," in order to practice safely. Pretending to know something you don't can kill people, although often all it does is make a mess. But I think some posters are trying to make the point that it makes it easier to say "I don't know" when the person you say it to isn't rolling her eyes or sighing impatiently. I take the original poster at face value that she didn't roll her eyes or sigh. I think it's very possible the student may have guessed that she would later say to other nurses or post on allnurses, "Can you believe how dumb this guy was?" The best advice I can give a student, or a new nurse, is just to accept that you are green, and others will at times find that amusing, or frustrating, but even as they are laughing or shaking their heads about how dumb you are, most will realize that they were just as green, once upon a time. After all, if any of us were really all that smart, we'd be posting on alllawyers.com.
To all posters: I think we've done a pretty good job of keeping this thread collegial and not getting into personal attacks. Clearly, there are differences of opinion, and while we did skate pretty close to the old ADN vs. BSN quagmire, it seems like we managed not to fall into it. I would hope, however, that we could refrain from further discussion as to whether someone "gets it" or needs to "let it go." Please try to debate the topic, rather than the poster. I doubt anyone is going to change anyone else's opinion dramatically. Those who feel the discussion has run its course and all that can be said, has been, are certainly free to ignore any future continuation. By the same right, there are probably a number of replies by several posters who understand just what the OP is saying, but think she's wrong. Fair enough.
Again, thanks to all for a decent job of keeping this thread civil. Carry on.
"Spiking the bag" is putting the large, pointy plastic end of the tubing set into the bag of IV fluids. It's the kind of thing that's so basic that after you've done a few thousand, it's hard to recall that it is a skill and has to be learned--until you get a bag or bottle of fluids you've never seen before. Bottles need a vented tubing set, some solutions need filters, and sometimes there are different sorts of caps on the access ports. There is no shame in saying, "I've never done this before, could you walk me through it?" The person you ask may later say to other nurses, "Can you believe he didn't even know how to spike a bag?" and this will probably lead to some amusing stories about times others have spiked their first bags.
I think most of us would think of "inserting IVs" as placing the canula in the vein, which is quite another matter. For a lucky few, that skill seems to come pretty naturally, but many of us have to work at it. It's not a particularly complicated process, but requires a fair amount of dexterity.
If I may take a couple more swats at this poor horse, I think the student in the original post was wrong to want to appear less green than he actually was. No harm done here, but there are plenty of times when one must swallow one's pride and say "I don't know," in order to practice safely. Pretending to know something you don't can kill people, although often all it does is make a mess. But I think some posters are trying to make the point that it makes it easier to say "I don't know" when the person you say it to isn't rolling her eyes or sighing impatiently. I take the original poster at face value that she didn't roll her eyes or sigh. I think it's very possible the student may have guessed that she would later say to other nurses or post on allnurses, "Can you believe how dumb this guy was?" The best advice I can give a student, or a new nurse, is just to accept that you are green, and others will at times find that amusing, or frustrating, but even as they are laughing or shaking their heads about how dumb you are, most will realize that they were just as green, once upon a time. After all, if any of us were really all that smart, we'd be posting on alllawyers.com.
your post has been the smartest response I have read from my OP:bow:
Never would I ever roll my eyes at anyone. I have people do that to me at work and it infuriates me.
I love helping others, and I am still learning too. Every day.
To all posters: I think we've done a pretty good job of keeping this thread collegial and not getting into personal attacks. Clearly, there are differences of opinion, and while we did skate pretty close to the old ADN vs. BSN quagmire, it seems like we managed not to fall into it. I would hope, however, that we could refrain from further discussion as to whether someone "gets it" or needs to "let it go." Please try to debate the topic, rather than the poster. I doubt anyone is going to change anyone else's opinion dramatically. Those who feel the discussion has run its course and all that can be said, has been, are certainly free to ignore any future continuation. By the same right, there are probably a number of replies by several posters who understand just what the OP is saying, but think she's wrong. Fair enough.
Again, thanks to all for a decent job of keeping this thread civil. Carry on.
would spiking a bag not be a skill learned in class before doing it on the floor? just curious?
in my school we learned the skill in class, at the nursing lab in my community college.
but after reading sooooooo many responses, it seems that a lot of schools don't teach that at school, and apparently the students in a lot of schools are left to learn all the basic nursing skills on their own.
wellhereiam
30 Posts
Our school doesn't learn how to "spike IV's" (I'm not really sure what that means. Insert an IV, right?) until second year. At least, I know we don't do something with IV's until our second year. Year one: First quarter is basic skills (AM care, take blood pressure, get urine sample, etc); Second quarter is assesssments; Third quarter is meds. I don't know the exact sequence of second year, but that's how our school goes.