Personal Narrative: A Day In The Classroom

Spending the day with the IV team went great. I spent most of the clinical day with Michelle Denton as my teacher. She is very meticulous and likes things her way, but she was an amazing preceptor to learn from. Throughout the day I am pretty sure I walked every hall in the KU hospital. I honestly didn’t know how big that facility was before yesterday and I am seriously still amazed. It was astonishing to see how many people receive care on a daily basis at KU. Not only that, but I was shocked to see how many people actually work for KU. Once Michelle and I started our day she inserted three IV’s before I could even blink my eyes. She taught me some great techniques on how to find “juicy” veins and which veins we don’t want to go for. She made inserting IV’s look like a piece of cake. I asked Michelle how many IV’s she thinks she has placed over the years and she said, “Oh I have no clue. If I had to guess probably thousands.” All I could think was she could probably put an IV in with her eyes closed if it was

I have never experienced this before, so it was really interesting. Michelle told me that the bump that comes from where the vein was infiltrated and the pain they have there never goes away. I also got to feel a woman’s port before Michelle did a sterile dressing change on the site. I have felt a port before, but it was different than the one this woman had. She had placed what you call a “power” port. It has three little dots on it, so it is easier to find and access when needed. Before the day was over I got to watch a PICC line be placed. The patient needed a PICC placed because she was starting chemotherapy. The whole PICC line procedure it crazy to me. While Troy was looking at the monitor to find veins her pointed out all of the major landmarks and any arteries he saw as well. The whole procedure probably took around 40 minutes and went great for the team and the