Urinary Catheter

[lulu_mata11]

I have been practicing inserting an indwelling urinary catheter at school, and recently we had to record it for a grade. As I was setting the catheter down after taking it out of the wrapper it flopped off to the side of the table just the tip. I want to know if this is a break in the sterile field if it landed on the sterile field, it was above the one inch border, and landed still above my waist. My only concern was that the paper from the sterile field was hanging off the edge of the table to begin with but again the catheter landed on it, above the border, and above my waist. Can someone please help!?

[sparkeepoo]

when in doubt throw it out

[oceanblue52]

Catheter tip should not touch anything until it is at the urethra. In real life I've seen this rule broken consistently :-( In school you can fail for this, the best way to handle this during testing is to call yourself out on breaking sterile technique. I'm my program at least, most professors were satisfied with us recognizing the error and allowed us to proceed to show competence with the rest of the procedure. Mistakes happen, a reasonable teacher will either let you proceed or allow you to start over.

[kataraang, BSN]

In our practicals we were allowed 2 mistakes AS LONG as you caught them and said how you'd fix it. I'd say in an evaluation, admit it. In real life...throw it out. In actual real life, I have seen this rule broken often (throw out an entire set? $$$$$ ).

Good luck with school!