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Post by malkieh on Apr 12, 2011 21:43:57 GMT -5
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Post by achot on Apr 13, 2011 2:15:54 GMT -5
Yes, become familiar with the anatomy of the arm and where to find the veins, and start feeling your own veins and those of your hubby your childrens, your friends, your garbage man, the lady at the bakery (OK, I think I am getting carried away here)... by putting your finger gently but slightly-firm-ly on the places where you expect good veins to be (for the elderly, dont bother with the shallow, blue, thin lines that look like veins but will not produce, you want the deeper stronger ones but not the super strong ones that are harder to pierce) you will get the hack of it in time- we all did.
Once you put your finger in place rock the finger a bit to get the feel of the vein and how to anchor it for when you put in the IV.
It takes time.
The first time I inserted an IV was on an elderly Italian lady. She spoke nonstop but let me put it in (SUCCESS). Then the Italian speaking resident who was in the room told me she cursed me with every known and unknown curse there is in Italy and was very colorful about it....
Good luck, you will get the hang of it but have patience.
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Post by medic09 on Apr 15, 2011 1:52:20 GMT -5
+1 to everything Achot said.
BTW, med students have it tougher. They learn straight off on the patient! Actually, that makes it tough on the patient. In contrast, when I was a young medic trainee in the IDF, we learned injections and IVs on our partners before having to implement this on someone else. And there were no dummy arms back then. Apparently nursing schools are worried about liabilities and so don't allow students to learn and practice on each other. My paramedic students still did, though. We taught our daughter phlebotomy skills on us (me and my wife).
Finding a vein, btw, is really more about feel than visuals. I think half or more of the hundreds of IVs I've done I have't really seen the vein. When I was trained to be a medic, we had to learn to do them in the dark. Since then everyone I've known who is really good at this agrees that palpating the vein is the more important notion, when possible. Eventually, you'll learn that for each patient you find the vein by any method that works.
Insertion technique simply requires practice. There isn't any other way that I know of. You have to develop a no-hesitation, quick, SMOOTH insertion. Practicing the steps may help. Anchoring the vein, mentally committing, and then a quick insertion. Don't forget follow through. Once the catheter is in, you still need to keep it there while removing the needle, attaching your IV set, and anchoring without losing the IV. So have your tape torn, or Opsite, etc. ready nearby. Many times I've been frustrated after losing an IV on a tough-stick patient.
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