Pt: you know if you miss this one you're going to have to give me oral.
Me: What!?
Pt: you know, oral medications. Instead of IV.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- GuitarGirlRN
- Guitar (and now bass)-playin' rock-and-roll emergency room RN. I pulled the trigger and now I have a public blog. Scary.
Just so you know...
Also:
If you really want to...
I love these guys!
- Addicted to Medblogs
- Ambulance Driver
- Backboards and Bandaids
- Blissful Entropy
- Code Blog
- Crass-Pollination
- DisappearingJohn RN
- Emergiblog
- ERnursey
- Fingers and Tubes in Every Orifice
- Hallway Four
- Happy Hospitalist
- Head Nurse
- Highly Trained Monkey
- Just Peachy!
- M.D.O.D.
- Madness: Tales of an ER Nurse
- March of the Platypi
- Medicine for the Outdoors
- MedicMarch
- Movin' Meat
- Nurse Ratched's Place
- NY Emergency Medicine
- Rogue Medic
- Scalpel or Sword
- Ten out of Ten
- Urostream
- WhiteCoat Rants
I love these guys too!
Subscribe!
Followers
the Lemonade Award
from CheapByChoice
8 comments:
HOLY CRAP!!! That would make my hair turn white all at once.
So here's my question. I'm a very hard stick.It's genetic. A butterfly helps. Do you folks want to know ahead of time before you poke or should I let you try once or twice before I tell you? And how many tries do you get before I send you to get someone else, preferably a phlebotomist?
A butterfly is for drawing blood. It's not an IV catheter. The catheters come in different sizes. If necessary, we can use a small catheter. The reason it's called a butterfly is because of the plastic handles, not because it's more gentle or anything. It's still a needle, same as the needle used to insert the catheter.
In the ER, we stick people because we have to give you meds or fluids. We do it all the time. We're probably better at it than your average phlebotomist, since they just draw blood and we insert IVs as well. It's a different technique.
We can usually see (and feel) that you're a hard stick. We see all kinds of people and veins. If the person attempting to draw blood and insert an IV isn't successful, there are other techniques that can be used, such as using an ultrasound machine to look for deeper veins, or sometimes (in pediatrics) special lights that can illuminate veins.
If you're in the ER and it's an emergency, and we have to get IV access, we're going to stick you as many times as we have to, even looking in the legs and neck. So a phlebotomist wouldn't really be very much help.
ha!! good luck with that one, right? LOLOLOL
Just wondering - if you have a great deal of trouble do you try and cannulate the external jugular vein or the saphenous vein ? Or do you leave it to the anesthetists ?
In my state, RNs do not place lines in the external jugular or saphenous veins; the MDs do that. However, in other states (such as California), RNs are permitted to insert EJs.
The external jugular and the saphenous vein are the next step after failing to obtain a peripheral line in the upper extremities. Next after that in an emergency comes an interosseous access (which RNs can place), and then of course a central line.
"oral"?
That would give me goosebumps=)
RNs in Ohio can't yet place IOs (but there is legislature in place to change that before the years end I'm told)
Post a Comment