Dear Paramedic Student who shall go unnamed,
There are several things I keep in my IV bucket. Let me tell you about them. I keep a latex and non-latex tourniquet. I keep a whole bunch of Vacutainer tubes to put the blood in. I keep gauze, alcohol swabs, saline locks, syringes, tape, and Tegaderm site dressings. I even keep a whole ton of saline flushes. There's a lot in there, I know.
But here's the important part. I carry two types of needles. One type of needle is for IVs. It's called an angiocath. It comes in gauges 14-24 for the IVs I use. It has a plastic catheter over the needle, and that part stays in the patient. Easy, right?
I also carry hypodermic needles that go on the END OF SYRINGES so that after I get the blood in the syringe, I can distribute it evenly into the vaccutainers. I only carry one size--18 gauge.
I keep them in SEPARATE parts of the IV bucket. You KNOW this. But yet, every single time I've started an IV, you hand me a regular needle when I need an IV needle. I've told you time and time again which is which, and even wasted supplies by opening countless needles to show you the difference. Let me see if I can clarify more.
This is an ANGIOCATH.
This is a HYPODERMIC SYRINGE NEEDLE.
Get it? No?
Angiocath...
Hypodermic needle for a syringe...
They do very different things. Please learn which is which before continuing in your paramedical education.
Sincerely,
Sam
p.s.--This rant brought to you by Sam's raging impatience with students who don't learn. I'm not being unfair, I've told him roughly fifteen times. I don't mind correcting him, but I do fear for his patients, when he sticks them, and then realizes that he's using a hypodermic needle, not an IV needle.
8 comments:
Mother of god.
Thank you very much for the warning, but of course I read the thing anyway and ajdakjslf;jdklg;jffgj. Stupid med stupid.
I love youuuuu.
<3Anni
wow you still use angio's I haven't seen them in years. You know though I cant talk about doing stupid things when it comes to needles. We use a needleless IV tubing system, I drew up Lasix and just stabbed right into the port with the needle still on the syringe...it looked like the foutain of youth with the saline coming back out of the port.
I know being a new medic student is a little stressful and scary, but seriously?!?!?!?
If he can't grasp that, what else is he failing on... This is the reason my class has a 81% cutoff. Can't meet it and you're done...
For our clinicals if we ever got anything short of "competent" and "follows direction" we had to redo it. Talk about feeling like an ass when you have to redo something like OB...
Wow....so very scary. Methinks that if he can't figure that part out, he shouldn't be in class to begin with. You have infinately more patience than I do. I'd have fried his ass and sent a letter to his instructor long ago...
I knew the differences before I stepped a foot into medic class.
Ride with the medics a bit, son. Learn what you need to learn, and then come back....
Cool post because i liked learning about the different needles and what they are used for...loved the pics...thanks!
LOL. Let him explain to the patient.
"Yeah,sorry, we've cannulated you with the wrong needle. That stick is useless. We're going to do it again."
Let the patient shout a lot.
Watch the student learn.
:)
Love it. LOL. Sounds like someone else I know.....know very well.
Have pity on the poor bastard - I just did my first venipuncture clinicals and kept having to be reminded to use alcohol wipes before actually sticking the patient. Grrrr...
better next time, hopefully...
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