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Excerpt
If you work in a busy hospital, you can understand why. For an experienced practitioner, it's quicker and easier to perform venipuncture than to coach a less-experienced nurse through the procedure and provide feedback. So the less-experienced nurse never develops the skills to perform venipuncture confidently under all kinds of conditions—which can cause frustration and needless pain for patients.
If all this sounds familiar, this special guide will help you increase your knowledge and critical thinking. Use it along with other opportunities to learn. Courses via the Internet, traditional classroom instruction, lab practice sessions using anatomic training arms, and work with clinical preceptors can help build your confidence. To become truly proficient, however, you must perform many procedures on real patients.
The learning process will also involve practicing on all types of arm sites. Veins that you can easily see and palpate aren't always available, so you must learn to cannulate more difficult veins too. In the following pages, we'll show you how.
Your employer must determine that you're competent to perform these procedures before you work independently. This process usually involves working under the supervision of a clinical preceptor or a more-experienced colleague who likes to teach others. Check the processes outlined in the policies where you work to determine how you must demonstrate competency and what procedures must be included. This may be limited to venipuncture, but it could include I.V. medication administration, use of electronic infusion pumps, and blood administration. Begin by working with patients who are well hydrated without chronic diseases or a history of many courses of infusion therapy.
As you work to improve your skills, you're bound to have a few failures. If you make two unsuccessful venipuncture attempts, don't persist on a patient. Call in the I.V. team (if available) or a nurse who's more skilled at venipuncture.
Don't let a few setbacks discourage you. With practice, you can refine your venipuncture skills. Then continue using them to keep them current.
