I failed my IV skills test.
Yep, I start countless IV’s, on little old folk, with little spidery veins, in the back of moving ambulances, with my eyes closed (not really, practically though), and I failed this skill on testing day.
It went like this…
It was a dark and stormy night (again, not really, just setting the mood) I walked into the nursing lab and signed in 2 hours prior to my scheduled test time, planning on learning all 28 steps required to start an IV “their way”. I have no problem adding 23 steps to a procedure I am competent in, to make sure I am doing things “their way” after all it’s “their program”.
About 5 minutes after I walked in my name was bellowed. Umm…I have two more hours till my test time I gingerly say to a wretchedly miserable stout woman glaring at me (my memory may be a little tainted). We are running two hours ahead of schedule, would you rather we be running two hours behind?! She snorts. Umm, no…but I was planning on using the 2 hours to practice, ma’am.
You’re a paramedic, don’t you already know how to start IV’s, a helpful classmate piped up. I clenched my fists to keep from backhanding her. The paramedic thing is a secret I try to keep. Generally nurses and paramedics are not BFFs. Neither fully appreciates the other, both thinking they know more and work harder than the other. Ironically, I have come to learn in a way they are both right. Her squinty little eyes lit up….oh a paramedic, huh? Well come on in, this should be interesting.
I walked into the room that was being used for testing and realize that it was the mock NICU room, with isolettes containing fake dead babies along two walls and fake plastic birthing vaginas along the other wall, a little distracting. It was like fire and brimstone, with Satan Instructor sitting in the middle of it all. I gathered myself up and began to tend to the lone arm that was sitting on a table.
I proceeded to establish an IV in the plastic arm. Then came the fury, Satan Instructor was so disgusted with me I fought the urge to hand her a bucket to throw-up into. She spit out my abominations in list order - I swabbed the site with alcohol clockwise, not counter clockwise like the training video clearly demonstrated, I used two pieces of tape to secure the IV instead of three, was I asking for it to be ripped out with my two measly little pieces of tape, I referred to the arm as Mr. Walters, not Mr. Walter (no “s”, my bad), and I warned Mr. Walter(s) of a “small poke” not a “ little pinch”. Her face said it all; I was a loser who just killed Mr. Walter(s) by my horrifically vicious IV skills.
In my defense, her video sucked, I fell asleep half way through it, so no, I didn’t note the counter clockwise rotation of the alcohol swab, I didn’t think that a lone plastic arm would flail about to the point of ripping an IV out, and my IV’s don’t “pinch” they “poke”. They have been “small pokes” or “big pokes” for the last 7 years, they didn’t start magically “pinching” that day. Oh and sorry Mr. Walter(s), the (s) just sounds more natural.
Satan Instructor shoved my evaluation paper at me with FAILED circled in red, telling me that I would have to come back the next day and she might be able to retest me then, or maybe the next day, or the next, whenever she “got around to it”. I explained that today was my only day off work. She laughed and said it was time for me to choose whether I was going to commit myself to nursing or continue to be “just a paramedic”.
I walked out calling her bad names under my breath. Then it hit me, I still had over an hour and a half before my scheduled test time. I took in a deep breath and gathered my “I am a sleep deprived, full time student, full time employee, and not taking crap from anyone” self and went back into the dead baby/plastic vagina room. I let her know that I would be coming back to take my test at the appointment time I had been assigned. When she objected loudly to my declaration it caught the attention of another testing instructor, a sweet grandmotherly type of lady with big white puffy hair and strong perfume.
Satan Instructor stormed out of the dead baby/plastic vagina room and insisted that Grandma Instructor follow her to her office. I could hear rumbles of her satanic voice mixed with the charm of Grandma Instructor’s melancholy voice.
They immerged. Grandma Instructor said that she would test me at my given appointment time. Bless her!
When I finished testing with Grandma Instructor she nodded her head and smiled. She said under her breath “you proved her wrong”. Satan Instructor had warned her about me and my sinful ways. What Satan Instructor didn’t know was that before Grandma Instructor taught nursing, she taught paramedics.
She handed my test paper with PASSED circled. She asked for my FAILED paper, folded it in two, tore it in fours and threw it away. As I was walking out she said to me, I love paramedics. Oh Grandma Instructor, and this paramedic loves you!
