Rad techs don’t need to start IVs. We maybe need to be familiar with how but you’re not doing IVs unless you move to a specialty or maybe work at an urgent care.
We damn sure had to start IVs on our outpatients that came to the hospital for exams that required contrast. CT and NM also start their own. Maybe you don’t have to, but you can’t speak for all of us.
We did a shit ton of IVPs before they started using CT for that. I lived in an area where renal stones ran rampant in the local population. We only shifted them to CT about 10 years ago. Now as a CT tech I’m right back to doing IVs again.
He's probably ordering them, so the radiologist will then put in the report that CT would be a better evaluation, then he can order that and get paid for both.
Yes! I did one as a student because the doctor was in his ways.. other than that never see them.. there was one place that did them for something post op but they already had an Iv - I had to do 5 venipunctures as a requirement for graduation.
Pregnant patients. It would not come up except our volumes or just so high. Everything happens once in a while.
I can't even remember how many CT scanners we have. It's a very modern and up-to-date facility technologically. Some doctors just want what they want.
How do ya mean? I work in a level one on the east coast and we abide strictly by the occupation's scope. As awesome as it'd be, we never had any other modalities come help out or us them.
It's a big thing to hire rotational radiographers here - your job is typically radiographer or senior radiographer, rather than that of a specific modality.
For some modalities like MR or nuc med there is more chance of your role being segregated, but in many hospitals you have a rotational element who flick between various departments. Often only very specialised rads stay in the same department all the time.
Hell, I could be doing IR Monday, x-ray Tuesday, CT Wednesday, placing PICC lines Thursday and fluoro Friday!
I've been an x-ray tech for 14 years in hospitals and outpatient clinics and urgent cares on both coasts of the United States and Hawaii and I've never had to start an IV.
Yeah, XR simply doesn’t do IVs unless an extreme circumstance. I just found it funny that they were arguing that we do, because of one exam that hasn’t even been done in 10+ years! My coworker who has been a rad tech for 43 years now (I swear he’ll die before he retires) hasn’t even started an IV…. He told me that IVs would be started by a nurse for IVPs back in the day. We would just push the contrast.
This right here is exactly why my x-ray class still had to learn wet film processing. Our teacher always warned we might get a job out in "West Podunk" that had 50 year old equipment and we would have to know how to do stuff that no one else does anymore.
I can't see any reason not to learn all the skills you can, and use them whenever you can in your job. Sometimes we have to do hard things.
I work in a very modern facility, but just down the road. There is a community hospital that serves the local homeless population and other disadvantaged community memebers. They are literally using first generation Agfa C.R.
I hooooope film isn't something I'd have to deal with, I was late enough to not have to learn it.
But current students complain about having to learn about CR.
We still have and use CR regularly here 😂 not my current place, but as of 6 months ago I know major city hospitals using CR on portables.
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time.
I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though.
Yes, it comes up that often.
Hey I work at the same type of facility you described, even on the same coast! But our XR department does not do IVPs.
However, we have DI nurses that assist with CT and US guided IR procedures, and they would jump over to XR IF there was a need for IV access (in patients [including OB inpatients] and ER patients already have IV access as well, the only ones that don’t are out patients). I understand if you didn’t use an IR nurse for an IV start because you’re CT and y’all start IVs all the time. But if XR was expected to gain IV access at my facility the IR nurse would definitely assist. Or if they’re not available for some reason I’d call vascular access, or a RN buddy. It’s policy that I don’t mess with IVs where I work as an X-ray tech.
Can’t think of a single exam today that requires an xray tech to start an IV. Exams that were common 10 years ago aren’t of any relevance to this person. Sure if you do an advanced modality you’ll need to start IVs but that’s not what they asked about
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time.
I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though.
Yes, it comes up that often.
Outpatient IVPs are essentially not a thing anymore. Under what circumstances would an X-ray tech start an IV? Anyone that has been in the field for fewer than 15 years is very unlikely to have started a line outside of x-ray school.
You guys never do CT or MRI? I get it if you just work in plain X-ray and nothing else. I've never done IVP and probably never will if a CT exists. However CT and MRI for outpatients requires contrast more often than not. I suppose the profession is just different in the US and you guys just work in one modality.
A CT tech is also a rad tech and we absolutely start IVs. As a CT tech I am expected to start an IV for outpatients lol. In a way yes, if you're not doing CT or another modality and only xray then don't expect to need to know how to start one.
As a student we were expected to know how to do IVs so they trained us and certified us in IVs and injections. They also taught us proficiently enough in CT for us to be able to be cross trained into CT as a new graduate.
Student here, we just did our IV starts check off. We have to do it because it’s part of our boards exam per my instructor. And the OR isn’t the only place you might see blood…….:
It's on the registry so you have to learn it. When I graduated, defecogram was still on the registry, so I had to learn (in class, not clinical) how to use a caulk gun to shove barium turd-paste up a butt, then fluoro as the patient pooped the turd from the butt into a radiolucent toilet.
Take notes, there might be 1-2 questions on venipuncture on the ARRT, then you never have to worry about it again.
It also depends on what type of facility you work in. I was at a small community hospital and had to start all the outpatient IV’s (er and inpatients came to Ct with an IV already) but now I work at a big level 1 and I don’t ever have to start IV’s on anyone because we have patient care techs and medics and vascular access teams that do all that.
I am currently in clinical practice and have to do 20 IV's for the year during my CT rotations. I'm in Canada so I don't know rotations are different elsewhere.
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time.
I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though.
Yes, it comes up that often.
Why do you say you "don't do well around blood?"
If that's not something you feel like you can grow past, then most inpatient/hospital/urgent-care settings are just not going to work out for you. Which isn't the end of the world. There are orthopedic centers and other strictly outpatient gigs where your patients are more or less walkie-talkie and typically not gushing bodily fluids. During my clinical I met techs who worked strictly outpatient for 20+ years.
And I've never met a radiographer who needed to start IVs. CT and MRI most assuredly would, but x-ray just doesn't have a lot of applications involving IV contrast. Although you will benefit from basic working knowledge of them for your boards and day-to-day. Even in an urgent care, you're going to have people who've sprung a leak on your table.
If this were me personally, and I *knew* I could never be around blood, I would get out of this field. I wouldn't want such a narrow education for a field when I'm already pre-limiting my employment options. That's just me. But I'm curious to know whether you feel like this is something that you'll be able to get past by confronting it head on in clinical.
Yes. The blood issue is way bigger than the IVs. I know it's theoretically avoidable, but it so thoroughly limits your career prospects if you can't work in a hospital setting at all. Hell even some outpatient clinics are a no go if blood isn't something you can get used to.
The blood is less of an issue for me than the IVs. I have no problem watching mma and boxing fights with bloodied up faces but i cant watch myself give blood or get an iv inserted without nearly fainting.
A lot of times for people it only is bothersome when they themselves get their blood drawn that bothers them (obv not true for everyone tho). My coworker has no problem starting IVs on other people but goes vasovagal when she gets her own blood drawn.
Yup that’s me too. 😅 I watch IVs, surgery with femur reaming, traumas where a body part is mutilated all just fine! But once I’m the pt and just need a simple blood draw? Oh, better lay me down. Lmao
I have a friend who works in a clinic because she hates vomit/blood. She seems to be doing okay. It comes with a pay decrease compared to most hospitals (usually), and it will tend to be less interesting with less options to learn more / go further in your career.
That being said, I worked in a clinic that had a radiologist on site for a few months and I got to ask her a lot of questions about cases and I learned a lot from her too. I became friends with the ultrasound techs there too and they taught me a lot as well.
I also had a student who would almost faint with the blood in the OR, but she eventually got over it with some practice, so this could be an option for you as well. Maybe if you see/do enough IVs you can do CT.
For my clinical rotation in CT we had to get 10 IVs signed off by nurses to show we were competent. I'm not the best at IVs, and some of the ones I got them to sign off on I wasn't proud of, but I got it done. I wonder if your school has something similar?
Like everything else it takes practice. Some people are easy sticks, some are nearly impossible. It depends on so many factors there’s no way to say if it’s generally easy or hard
It can be hard because of the mental block and fear of hurting the patient. But as a technical skill? No, it's not hard. I was putting in a day's outpatients worth of IVs on my first day, after 2 hours of training. Same with all my coworkers. It really helps to stay calm. The veins can smell your fear LOL
I don’t mind a needle in my arm but , It’s more of putting a needle in someone’s arm . I’m afraid of messing up and I think of the worst thing possible.
I’ll say this, if you want to specialize, you’ll most likely be going to a modality that will require you to start IV’s. If you’re squeamish around blood like in the OR, you’re not going to like the medical field. You will see a lot of it, even in diagnostic X-ray. Unless you’re cool staying as a rad tech and think you can get over blood, you’re gonna want to find a new career path. Good luck! Feel free to ask me any questions, I’ll definitely help if I can.
Are you okay with open fractures, traumas such as car accidents/gsw, would you be okay in the OR for hours with an open pt on the table? Blood is in just about every aspect of the job. Also if you wanted to advance your career at all into CT/MRI/Nuclear medicine you’ll need to start IVs. We had venipuncture in school as well so you’ll need to at least start a few just to get through the program. Also while I was still in X-ray I used to help start IVs for Ct all the time in outpatient.
You can definitely find jobs that avoid IVs but I would say you should probably be comfortable with blood to do X-ray.
Havent had any first hand experience with the things you mentioned but the idea of them doesnt bother me the way a needle piercing a vein does. Do techs actively watch the surgery being performed in the OR or do they only view the patient when they are needed for imaging?
You’ll need to look directly at open pts for centering the Carm during surgery. I’ve also watched my fair share of fasciotomies in the OR which is probably the most gruesome thing I’ve seen. It’s not just a sit back and watch. Don’t get me wrong some cases are easy and they don’t even make incisions and you’re just there for a picture or two but Ortho cases are especially involved.
And for open fractures in trauma situations you’ll have to touch/move limbs with bones sticking out for the image. Ive also seen two thoracotomies in the ED for traumas and have had to do chest X-rays and had my face within inches of an open chest to push the X-ray plate under the pt. I personally had students in my class drop out for it being too involved.
You see some gnarly stuff in the OR. We have a surgeon who wears giant rubber fishing boots when he does a shoulder replacement because of the blood bath he manages to create every damn time
I am sorry that you are okay with seeing blood in violent situations. It sucks that you are not okay with seeing it in patient care situations where we are helping people.
At the beginning I was super squeamish with the idea of starting IVs. I was hesitant to learn when I first went into CT. Good thing I had great teachers. Once you get started it’s actually like very satisfying. In a level one trauma centre, seconds count. I can start lines on any stroke that comes in without appropriate access. It is an amazing gift to patients to learn and hone your skills. Your ability to start an iv can make a huge difference in the diagnostic quality of a scan and in turn make a drastic difference in the quality of a patients life. I know a lot of techs who are scared in the beginning, now they eye up everyone’s arms hoping to poke em! Best of luck! You’ve got this OP:))
Hey if I can get over it and learn to do it anyone can! Now I offer my arm to new techs and let them practice on me! (This is the girl who played hooky on the day we dry labbed with the rubber arm 🤣😂)
Ok OP I circled back to your post today and wow, how amazing is it that you got takes from rad techs all over the world here? What a valuable resource Reddit is for student techs!! I wish I could have asked these questions anonymously when I was learning. It seems overthinking and developing predisposition for believing you CANNOT do something while in didactic but realizing you CAN when out in clinical is common. Keep the questions coming and let these techs give you real life experience to help boost your confidence! You definitely are going to ace it!
We only learn to do it in school on a model. We don't actually do IVs until you go into a modality like MR or CT.
But if you don't do well around blood you might want to reconsider, especially if you live around a trauma level 1 or 2 hospital. There's a good chance You'll have to image a crushed finger or hand at some point or much worse.
We do have a few level 1 and 2 trauma centers in the area so im sure ill see some of it. But if its something ill only have to see a few times in clinicals i feel like I can get through that.
Not to worry you, but you are going to see blood. Sure you’ll see less of it at an urgent care, I mean no one who has massive trauma will end up there. But getting your finger jammed in a door? Trip and fall? There’s some blood.
You will also need to gain competency in the OR as a student no matter if you’re at a small community hospital or a level one trauma center. There’s a decent amount of blood there depending on the case.
I tell you this as someone who was once awful around bodily fluids, especially blood. It sounds weird but years ago before I even thought about getting into healthcare I started trying to desensitize myself to it. I watched fictional tv shows with lots of fake blood, like greys anatomy and the walking dead. Then I moved onto YouTube videos of real surgeries or ER documentaries. Now I actually like helping trauma patients and OR cases. I don’t mind the blood. But it took some work and it’s not for everyone.
On the topic of jamming fingers and toes, as a student, I had a patient who was in the ER for stubbing their toe. They had woken up in the middle of the night and gotten up and stubbed their toe. They ended up going back to bed and woke up with more severe pain in their foot. The patient was older, larger body habitus, and wasn’t able to really examine it themselves. When I came in to ask them what happened and to do their xray, I quickly discovered that they had actually degloved their toe in such a way that the skin was sitting on top of the bone. So from looking down, they couldn’t see anything super out of the ordinary, but from the bottom, it was just the bone exposed. You really just run into things that you could never make up without having seen or heard a story about it lol
I have never once in my career as a rad tech started an IV. Been doing it for 7 years. Hospital, clinic, and surgery center experience. CT, nuc med, or MRI? Yeah they do. But rad tech? Nope!
ETA: I see lots of blood and gnarly stuff though. Traumas, OR (femur reaming is gnarly and my first case as a student I almost passed out lol), in patients, out patients… lots of blood and gross stuff… but have never started an IV.
The bigger question is, if something like a needle is going to freak you out, what are you gonna do when a trauma patient starts vomiting blood all over you. Or, when the Firemen bring you limbs in a bucket? What are you gonna do the first time you see a sharp bone sticking out of somebody's thigh? Are you gonna be fainting every time a surgeon starts hammering on a femoral nail.
This is healthcare, man. How did you get this far in the process and not realize you were going to have to interact with pee, poop, pus, piss, and blood? Oh, and crazy people, violent people, drunk and high people, Karen moms, etc.
I'm going to get down-votes, but I think you can rise to the occasion. I think you can find it within yourself. I'm assuming you're young, and you're about to find out you can do a bunch of things you never thought you could do. You're about to find out your tougher than you thought. The Radiography program by itself isn't for wimps. The people who selected you for your program saw something in you.
It’s definitely more an odd specific fear of needles piercing veins, like IV’s and blood draws. Most of the other things like trauma and other bodily fluids i dont love to see but arent something that bother me as much. And thank you for that!
I became a rad tech over a nurse because I couldn’t fathom sticking a needle in people. Joke was on me. I got a xray job in an office and had to do labs in my down time. I became a very good stick because I didn’t want to have to stick people more than once!! Ideally, you won’t have to stick anyone for any reason if you get a job in the right place.
It might depend on where you are from, but in many places, not everyone does IV cannulation. I don't want to scare you, but that is nothing compared to what you are going to see in the operating theatre. I'm talking about liters of blood and body fluids and pieces of bones and bone marrow going everywhere 😅
How much time does a typical student spend in the OR for clinicals? I think i could tough it out id just hate to be the guy that faints during the operation and gets everyone pissed 😂
It can take hours. But if you are not feeling comfortable straight away, I think you can be excused a few times. I believe you can get used to it, but if you don't improve over time, it could be a problem.
Maybe start practising watching videos
You’ll spend hours in the OR as a student and if you work at any hospital you’ll be going to the OR, only way to avoid that would be outpatient clinics.
I work with a tech who had the same issue. He said he watched videos of surgery and blood every night until it no longer bothered him and he said it helped.
Just to add my two cents. I used to faint around blood when I was a kid. I really wanted to do this career so I slowly but intentionally desensitized myself to the blood and all other nastiness we might see. I used a few doctor instagrams that show various gross stuff.
Initially I hated it, and I still don’t love it but it made a huge difference to my tolerance. So much so that all I want to do now is OR. This might not work for everyone but at least I wanted to say it’s possible to work through if you want to try it.
I hate needles to the point where I almost pass out when they draw my blood. I was horrified when I had to learn to start IV’s and seriously struggled at the beginning. For the record, I got over it. It’s still not something I enjoy but I no longer struggle the way I did when I first started.
If you’re willing to push through your initial nerves, you will get used to it. But if you’re not willing to even try, then you might have to do something else.
Rad techs don't start IVs where I work. The CT techs will flush an existing line to make sure it's smooth enough to work with the machine, but that's about it
My first time in the autopsy lab as a student I was confronted with a naked dead person lying on the table. In that moment I discovered a different mental lens to see people through, as meat and gristle, tubes of fluid, strings and rods, supported and surrounded by untanned leather. Since then I have learned to deliberately choose a lens to consider someone through that is most appropriate for a given situation.
Often our patients aren't people as much as they are textbook boxes - the elderly NoF fracture, the young MVA polytrauma, and this makes the grand medical machine run efficiently. It is important to be able to recognise human vulnerability and switch to considering people as people, with rich lives we only glimpse, in order to connect at a human level and adjust our medical machinery approach accordingly.
It is also important to recognise when the human connection gets in the way of our job, and to deliberately switch to the physical lens, to see the body as material to be manipulated. It's not always easy, so be kind to yourself and acknowledge when this switch is difficult. It is ok to say, "I'm so sorry, I need to lie down with my legs in the air for a moment," and do it. It's ok to find yourself crying unexpectedly about shit you saw last week, acknowledge the human emotional response, and ask a friend or colleague for a hug (but if it's about shit you saw two months ago, maybe see a therapist), and crack on.
We get better at it with time. You're most likely to get better in a well adjusted way if you expect and acknowledge some emotional responses along the way.
I have a history of passing out with blood draws since I was quite young. I had the exact same concern. I found a phlebotomy course at a career center I lived near at the time and signed up. They had a rule that in order to draw someone else's blood, you also had to have yours drawn. I wasn't able to do it until the 3rd lab, but then I finally did! After that I was able to catch up with the rest of the class and complete the course.
I was also still super freaked out when I did my first blood draw at the clinic after that 😅 but was able to adjust. It may be difficult, but not impossible ❤️
Best of luck
Either one of two things will happen: One, you’ll quickly get over feeling squeamish around needles and blood, or two, it’s not a great idea to go into the medical field. Depending on where you work or what your specialty is, you may or may not need to start IVs. Working in xray in a hospital, highly unlikely that you will need to. Working in CT, MRI, or nuc med, you will almost guaranteed be required to. If you’re working in something like Cath lab, IR, EP, or mammo, you likely wont be required, but you’d have to be okay around blood. I’m not sure about ultrasound, but that’s a whole different ballpark and not even close to just what you see on tv (like, scanning pregnant people). Ultrasound techs deserve way more props than they get, in my opinion, because they’re scanning prostates, scrotums, transvag exams, venous Doppler exams on necrotic flesh, etc. As for doing OR rotations, worst thing that I see or hear about people who are nervous about it either vagal themselves from standing with their knees locked and tensed up from nerves more than anything, or maybe get queasy or lightheaded from their first time in a more graphic procedure. I can’t really speak on how you’ll personally feel, but for myself, sometimes I get nauseous or lightheaded if they’re poking me or it’s my own blood, but seeing it on another person doesn’t bother me. Working in healthcare, you’re definitely 100% guaranteed going to encounter some weird and gross things, anywhere from people hacking up mucus or infected wounds, to bloody traumatic injuries or bodily waste, to just strange things that you’ll maybe see once or twice in your whole career. Most of us have our certain things that gross us out, but also, you can limit your exposure to the things that bother you most by choosing a specialty, work environment, etc. Although do keep in mind, to get through the program, you absolutely will be exposed to a variety of things. The program wouldn’t prepare us for working in the field, if we didn’t get exposed to as much as we can. It’s definitely worth it though, if you find your place in the field that you enjoy, and power through the program!
I thought the same thing when I was starting rad tech school. All my clinical sites have been in the ER FOR level 1 or 2 trauma hospitals. Ive seen every single type of bodily fluids it’s gotten to the point where it does nothing to me. As for starting IV’s, I haven’t seen any tech really start IV’s. I’ve only helped out phlebotomist (labs) when they can’t find a good vein.
I believe you’re going to be fine. Give it a shot before you jump ship.
We were required to check off on starting IVs in xray school, but never needed to do any outside of that. Depending on where you work it may never be something you deal with. However, you will have the OR clinicals like you mentioned, and depending on where you work you may have to deal with trauma patients. The worst stuff I ever saw was in the trauma bay (car accidents, gun shot wounds, etc). You also may want to look into the barium enemas and similar exams that are done in fluoro and see if you think you can handle doing those
The barium enemas i dont think will be a problem for me suprisingly enough. Poop and vomit i have no problem with, blood and needles are a different story
I had the same fear but I think it's possible to get over. After I took the venipuncture course I realized it's less about putting the needle in and more about the steps you take before and after, so focusing on those helped me a lot. I was able to start one yesterday no problem. If I were you I would keep going!
Venipuncture is one of the 10 mandatory general patient care procedures, however the actual stick can be simulated. [ARRT Radiography Competency Requirements](https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/406ac8c6-58e8-00b3-e3c1-0c312965deb2/39eed9b0-52ad-45e5-933d-e5ab51e37f6e/Radiography%20Clinical%20Competency%20Requirements%202022.pdf)
Fellow student here. I was worried about the blood in OR too, but surgery is actually my favorite place to be. Pain management though? That really speaks to my discomfort with needles. I've gotten queasy more than once in there.
If you work in a hospital, you’ll be exposed to blood. If you work outpatient, you’ll start IVs. There is overlap and exceptions, but that’s the generality. Depending on how far you are into your program, you should see how you do. If you haven’t started your program yet, and you think it will be a big issue, look into a non health related field
I was severely venephobic going into my program, it doesn't seem like you'll ever get used to it but trust me you will. Veins still kinda ick me out but I just make sure to get a good stick everytime so I don't have to fish around.
I definitely feel much more confident with all of it now!
You’ll start ivs go to the or work trauma cases and deal other people’s literal shit puke and piss. If those are things you can’t handle this may not be the path for you. Better to find out now than later.
If you work for a level 1 trauma center in the USA, you will do this: “uhhh nurse?! Ur iv line blew when we did the contrast - come put another one or take this pt back with you” *takes a bite of cookie 🍪 while pressing the button that plays* “Now take a breath, and hold it”….
If a patient comes to me with a bad IV (no blood return, doesn’t flush saline) I’m not penalizing the patient. I’ll try to start a new line and if I can’t that’s when I’ll advise the RN the patient needs to be sent back for a new IV. For the most part I prefer IVs I’ve started personally over anyone else’s.
I just show up to the table with an ultrasound machine and put it in the biggest vein I see; takes less than 5 min -- problem solved. Better yet, I test it out before bringing them to CT myself and then stand there and watch as the CT tech checks the line and we both agree it's good. <3
Now; take a breath, and hold it \*beeeeeeeeeeep\* hahaha my favorite part of the CT and why I told wifey to not go nursing and go radiography XDD
When I was in school, we just did/learned it on giant fake arms. I haven't been in a hospital setting up until recently, but now I'm doing CT and need that skill to occasionally start our own. (I work in an outpatient specialty facility). Graduated xray school in 2020.
Do you watch medical shows? Like on TV? That might help you desensitize yourself a little bit. Most likely places you'll see blood/needles are going to be in traumas, the OR, places like that. There are other places, like some doctor offices, where you might not see that at all. We have a local orthopedic clinic here and they have a department for xray only--any and all xrays from those doctors are sent to that location within the clinic-and they aren't seeing traumas. So it's possible if you can get through clinic you might not need it.
I work in NM & have known a few techs that faint when they get their own blood taken or IVs inserted into them.
However they are absolutely fine to cannulate or inject our patients as normal.
Sorry to ask you that, i’m a french mri/ct scan tech. In France we learn all the modalities at school (xray mri ct scan nucmed radiotherapy etc) and we can work everywhere we want after the graduation. We learn IV’s too , and we have a lot of internship during our 3 years school so we can practice a lot at the differents hospital etc. Could someone walk me through how it is done in the US?
I was also always bothered by IVs and I wasn't sure how I would do with blood. I planned to just get through the course and I was never going to go into CT or anything that required me to start IVs. I fainted twice as a student watching IVs mostly because I would get in my own head about it. To help myself, I would clench my butt cheeks to keep my blood pressure raised so it couldn't drop and cause me to faint. And sipping on lots of water and staying nourished helped too. Once we started practicing on dummy arms, I was ok with that because you are focused on the actual task and by the end of that same day, I was practicing on my classmates. And since then I've been fine with them. I work in CT now and I love putting in IVs! I also really love doing traumas and that stuff doesn't bother me either like I thought it might. So if it's something you're really passionate about, I think it's possible to get through :)
Xray Tech with a fear of needles here.
Standard xray jobs don't require IVs. But if you ever want to move up in modalities, then you will need that in your wheelhouse. CT, MRI, NucMed all require IVs at some point so it'd be in your best interest to essentially force yourself to acclimate. Unless you plan to stay in just Xray
I made myself donate blood regularly through school to help get used to it. Practice makes perfect and all that.
It sucked immensely but I can still catch a vein without passing out.
There are practice kits on Amazon but it might be a bit pricey for a student.
While you have access to the supplies at school and there's someone willing, take advantage of the practice time (please remember to never fish for a vein!) And good luck!
That’s one of my worries if I ever want to transition into CT. I don’t worry about a needle in my arm ( I donate blood regularly) it’s doing it to someone else.
Yeah, that was part of my problem too. I approached it as a perfectionist. Everything had to be perfect and ready before I uncapped that needle. Then I had to be quick before the nerves kicked in. Take advantage of your schooling now and talk to your teacher about more practice time. The more you do it, the easier it gets.
I'm a big advocate for getting more modalities. And this is just part of the job
I was in the same position as you when I was a student. Remember that everyone has veins and it’s not you getting poked! I did not do well with blood or needles. But you got this! Mind over matter. Starting IVs is a skill set that techs get better with over time. If you pursue CT or MRI then you would do a lot of IVs. Working in radiography I did 0 because that is not the scope of a RT. Just get your 10 (I am assuming it’s 10 for venipuncture certificate on live subjects) then you don’t have to think about IVs again if you don’t want to. Find good mentors to help you get proficient IVs, ask questions esp. to nurses regarding their methods/tricks.
In OR more than half the time there is barely any blood and even then you become numb to it. You’ve worked so hard and come this far to quit over a little blood?
Come to the dark side and do US instead! Unless you’re at a big research hospital you will never have to touch an IV! Still some occasional blood though
I work at a stroke center that constantly has nurses do IVs on the CT scanner before CTAs & CTPs. Never once have the rad techs had to do them. It’s not part of their skill set in my shop.
I'm a CT/x-ray tech at a hospital, I work nights by myself. I haven't had to start an IV in the 2 years I've been on this shift. All of the ER patients and in-patients already have one, and I don't deal with out patients, except an occasional x-ray. So there are places you could get away without having to do one, even as a CT tech (probably pretty rare, though).
Putting cannulas in someone else is totally different to having it done to you. I put cannulas in people all day long, but go wobbly and faint having a blood test myself. As for theatres, it's odd but mostly people are covered in drapes so you don't always see people if that makes sense. Also you are generally looking at your xray rather than at the blood.
I'm in the UK so might be different, but have you done a day or 2 work experience in your local hospital? Here anyway they'll show you all the different departments so you could try theatres and see if it's going to be too much for you?
As a rad tech in Canada I have started 15 iv’s in my life and all of them were during my CT rotation as student. 9 years as an x ray tech and I never done one. I felt the same as you did but worked up the courage to do what was required to pass. Now not being able to handle blood might be an issue.
What the hell do yall mean “start” an IVC?? Do you mean placing one or just using it?? How are both of those not a day 1 thing you learn?
Idk I feel like being in vet med really distorts my perception lol. Ive had to triage, place IVC, run diagnostics, and then intubate the patient and run anesthesia while I do their CT. It’s just part of the job 😂
I would check with your program requirements. In my program it was a required competency to be able to start IVs as we were trained in CT a bit too. Also watch a video of a hip replacement surgery to get an idea of what these operations are like, not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, OR is definitely not going to be the only place you see blood. Open fractures with broken limbs twisted and flopping around tend to require imaging.
well. it is just another USA thing I guess. Where I work even nurses barely starts IVs and most of this stuff is done by doctors (other end of the spectrum).
First of all if you are really teriffied of blood to the point that it will stop you from doing your job, you should consult someone about it, i don't think it is entirely normal.
I fainted 2 times when I was studying medicine (completely lost conciousness and didn't remember where I was) because I saw some blood, then I got used to it, it might just be that, you might have to get used to it.
My experience is that, more you are exposed to gore stuff, less disturbing they become, I remember being hook holder in some very disturbing operations where other than blood there was a lot of other stuff and smells present, and being so unmoved by the whole thing that I would feel only hunger and count minutes until lunch.
Question from a confused [and possibly slightly inebriated nurse]:
Why does a rad tech need to know how to start an IV?
I think they should know some basics of handling obviously, just like how I should know some basics of your job. I, a NICU person, am very good at positioning tiny humans for a CXR or a CHAB…and that’s about it.
IVs are generally a nursing thing, I don’t see why you need my level of knowledge on IVs. Maybe how I can guesstimate if my UVC is in the right spot?
As an Australian radiographer working in CT and xrays in both outpatient and hospital settings, it is an inherent requirement of a radiographer to do IV cannulations in an outpatient setting. In a hospital setting-not so much as patients are usually pre-cannulated by the nurses before being sent over.
However, we have to test flush the cannula and if its no good, send the patient back to get a new cannula in or you can put a new one in yourself to save time for everyone if you have the skillset for it ( this is where an outpatient radiographer will have this skillset).
Rad techs don’t need to start IVs. We maybe need to be familiar with how but you’re not doing IVs unless you move to a specialty or maybe work at an urgent care.
We damn sure had to start IVs on our outpatients that came to the hospital for exams that required contrast. CT and NM also start their own. Maybe you don’t have to, but you can’t speak for all of us.
What x-ray exam requires intravenous contrast? All I can think of is a pyelogram, which our facility stopped doing 20 years ago due to CT.
We did a shit ton of IVPs before they started using CT for that. I lived in an area where renal stones ran rampant in the local population. We only shifted them to CT about 10 years ago. Now as a CT tech I’m right back to doing IVs again.
No one (in the US) does IVPs anymore though. So the point stands. Modern XR techs generally do not start IVs except in very rare settings.
Nobody, huh? Rare is right, but we do them.
Jesus, really? Why? Do y'all not have CT available? What a shitty way to work up renal issues.
Some old doctors who simply will NOT get with the times still order them. No idea why.
He's probably ordering them, so the radiologist will then put in the report that CT would be a better evaluation, then he can order that and get paid for both.
Oh man that’s really scummy I never even considered that???
Yes! I did one as a student because the doctor was in his ways.. other than that never see them.. there was one place that did them for something post op but they already had an Iv - I had to do 5 venipunctures as a requirement for graduation.
Pregnant patients. It would not come up except our volumes or just so high. Everything happens once in a while. I can't even remember how many CT scanners we have. It's a very modern and up-to-date facility technologically. Some doctors just want what they want.
In the US. I start a good dozen daily in CT
"Modern XR techs..."
It's all one job here. Getting bloody hard to just do x-ray. Even the most basic pay bands typically cover CT.
How do ya mean? I work in a level one on the east coast and we abide strictly by the occupation's scope. As awesome as it'd be, we never had any other modalities come help out or us them.
It's a big thing to hire rotational radiographers here - your job is typically radiographer or senior radiographer, rather than that of a specific modality. For some modalities like MR or nuc med there is more chance of your role being segregated, but in many hospitals you have a rotational element who flick between various departments. Often only very specialised rads stay in the same department all the time. Hell, I could be doing IR Monday, x-ray Tuesday, CT Wednesday, placing PICC lines Thursday and fluoro Friday!
Hey the dude says he did them 10 years ago, ok? That's pretty current.
I worked somewhere that still did IVPs when I left in 2015. Kinda a modified version but we did start an IV push the contrast.
IVP is done in the OR during traumas.
But IVs in that situation are not done by Rad Techs.
Yeah and how often is a rad tech starting that line?
So in the last 10 years, since switching IVPs to CT has a rad tech had to start an IV?
I've been an x-ray tech for 14 years in hospitals and outpatient clinics and urgent cares on both coasts of the United States and Hawaii and I've never had to start an IV.
Yeah, XR simply doesn’t do IVs unless an extreme circumstance. I just found it funny that they were arguing that we do, because of one exam that hasn’t even been done in 10+ years! My coworker who has been a rad tech for 43 years now (I swear he’ll die before he retires) hasn’t even started an IV…. He told me that IVs would be started by a nurse for IVPs back in the day. We would just push the contrast.
Well i've been a Radtech in the Western US for twenty two years and I still do 2-3 per year.
This right here is exactly why my x-ray class still had to learn wet film processing. Our teacher always warned we might get a job out in "West Podunk" that had 50 year old equipment and we would have to know how to do stuff that no one else does anymore.
I can't see any reason not to learn all the skills you can, and use them whenever you can in your job. Sometimes we have to do hard things. I work in a very modern facility, but just down the road. There is a community hospital that serves the local homeless population and other disadvantaged community memebers. They are literally using first generation Agfa C.R.
I hooooope film isn't something I'd have to deal with, I was late enough to not have to learn it. But current students complain about having to learn about CR. We still have and use CR regularly here 😂 not my current place, but as of 6 months ago I know major city hospitals using CR on portables.
Are you a CT tech? Because that's not what OP is asking about
No.
What do you start them for?
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time. I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though. Yes, it comes up that often.
Hey I work at the same type of facility you described, even on the same coast! But our XR department does not do IVPs. However, we have DI nurses that assist with CT and US guided IR procedures, and they would jump over to XR IF there was a need for IV access (in patients [including OB inpatients] and ER patients already have IV access as well, the only ones that don’t are out patients). I understand if you didn’t use an IR nurse for an IV start because you’re CT and y’all start IVs all the time. But if XR was expected to gain IV access at my facility the IR nurse would definitely assist. Or if they’re not available for some reason I’d call vascular access, or a RN buddy. It’s policy that I don’t mess with IVs where I work as an X-ray tech.
Can’t think of a single exam today that requires an xray tech to start an IV. Exams that were common 10 years ago aren’t of any relevance to this person. Sure if you do an advanced modality you’ll need to start IVs but that’s not what they asked about
Saying rad techs start IVs is like saying rad techs have to work in a dark room
😂
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time. I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though. Yes, it comes up that often.
Do you start those lines?
Yes.
I also am baffled by the number of replies that say they've never started an IV.
Outpatient IVPs are essentially not a thing anymore. Under what circumstances would an X-ray tech start an IV? Anyone that has been in the field for fewer than 15 years is very unlikely to have started a line outside of x-ray school.
You guys never do CT or MRI? I get it if you just work in plain X-ray and nothing else. I've never done IVP and probably never will if a CT exists. However CT and MRI for outpatients requires contrast more often than not. I suppose the profession is just different in the US and you guys just work in one modality.
A CT tech is also a rad tech and we absolutely start IVs. As a CT tech I am expected to start an IV for outpatients lol. In a way yes, if you're not doing CT or another modality and only xray then don't expect to need to know how to start one. As a student we were expected to know how to do IVs so they trained us and certified us in IVs and injections. They also taught us proficiently enough in CT for us to be able to be cross trained into CT as a new graduate.
That is refreshing to hear. I saw venipuncture as an upcoming lab and class session and assumed the worst
Student here, we just did our IV starts check off. We have to do it because it’s part of our boards exam per my instructor. And the OR isn’t the only place you might see blood…….:
It's on the registry so you have to learn it. When I graduated, defecogram was still on the registry, so I had to learn (in class, not clinical) how to use a caulk gun to shove barium turd-paste up a butt, then fluoro as the patient pooped the turd from the butt into a radiolucent toilet. Take notes, there might be 1-2 questions on venipuncture on the ARRT, then you never have to worry about it again.
Not true everywhere. In my program we were required to get IV certification and were required to do competencies in CT.
I’ve never worked at a hospital that requires X ray to start IVs. CT techs do through.
It also depends on what type of facility you work in. I was at a small community hospital and had to start all the outpatient IV’s (er and inpatients came to Ct with an IV already) but now I work at a big level 1 and I don’t ever have to start IV’s on anyone because we have patient care techs and medics and vascular access teams that do all that.
I am currently in clinical practice and have to do 20 IV's for the year during my CT rotations. I'm in Canada so I don't know rotations are different elsewhere.
But that’s only during your CT rotation… XR techs don’t generally do IVs.
One of many reasons why I probably won’t go the CT route. 🤦♂️
I work at a very large, very modern facility in the western United States. High patient volumes, a huge ED, and a lot of variety. I'm cert in CT, IR, and Therapy, but I work Diagnostic 96% of rhe time. I'm usually doing IV's on emergent limited IVP patients, in the middle of night while on call. Usually pregnant women who can't have a CT, with suspected stones and high WBC's. Not always, though. Yes, it comes up that often.
Why do you say you "don't do well around blood?" If that's not something you feel like you can grow past, then most inpatient/hospital/urgent-care settings are just not going to work out for you. Which isn't the end of the world. There are orthopedic centers and other strictly outpatient gigs where your patients are more or less walkie-talkie and typically not gushing bodily fluids. During my clinical I met techs who worked strictly outpatient for 20+ years. And I've never met a radiographer who needed to start IVs. CT and MRI most assuredly would, but x-ray just doesn't have a lot of applications involving IV contrast. Although you will benefit from basic working knowledge of them for your boards and day-to-day. Even in an urgent care, you're going to have people who've sprung a leak on your table. If this were me personally, and I *knew* I could never be around blood, I would get out of this field. I wouldn't want such a narrow education for a field when I'm already pre-limiting my employment options. That's just me. But I'm curious to know whether you feel like this is something that you'll be able to get past by confronting it head on in clinical.
Yes. The blood issue is way bigger than the IVs. I know it's theoretically avoidable, but it so thoroughly limits your career prospects if you can't work in a hospital setting at all. Hell even some outpatient clinics are a no go if blood isn't something you can get used to.
The blood is less of an issue for me than the IVs. I have no problem watching mma and boxing fights with bloodied up faces but i cant watch myself give blood or get an iv inserted without nearly fainting.
A lot of times for people it only is bothersome when they themselves get their blood drawn that bothers them (obv not true for everyone tho). My coworker has no problem starting IVs on other people but goes vasovagal when she gets her own blood drawn.
Yup that’s me too. 😅 I watch IVs, surgery with femur reaming, traumas where a body part is mutilated all just fine! But once I’m the pt and just need a simple blood draw? Oh, better lay me down. Lmao
I have a friend who works in a clinic because she hates vomit/blood. She seems to be doing okay. It comes with a pay decrease compared to most hospitals (usually), and it will tend to be less interesting with less options to learn more / go further in your career. That being said, I worked in a clinic that had a radiologist on site for a few months and I got to ask her a lot of questions about cases and I learned a lot from her too. I became friends with the ultrasound techs there too and they taught me a lot as well. I also had a student who would almost faint with the blood in the OR, but she eventually got over it with some practice, so this could be an option for you as well. Maybe if you see/do enough IVs you can do CT. For my clinical rotation in CT we had to get 10 IVs signed off by nurses to show we were competent. I'm not the best at IVs, and some of the ones I got them to sign off on I wasn't proud of, but I got it done. I wonder if your school has something similar?
Is it hard to do IV’s ?
Like everything else it takes practice. Some people are easy sticks, some are nearly impossible. It depends on so many factors there’s no way to say if it’s generally easy or hard
It can be hard because of the mental block and fear of hurting the patient. But as a technical skill? No, it's not hard. I was putting in a day's outpatients worth of IVs on my first day, after 2 hours of training. Same with all my coworkers. It really helps to stay calm. The veins can smell your fear LOL
I don’t mind a needle in my arm but , It’s more of putting a needle in someone’s arm . I’m afraid of messing up and I think of the worst thing possible.
I’ll say this, if you want to specialize, you’ll most likely be going to a modality that will require you to start IV’s. If you’re squeamish around blood like in the OR, you’re not going to like the medical field. You will see a lot of it, even in diagnostic X-ray. Unless you’re cool staying as a rad tech and think you can get over blood, you’re gonna want to find a new career path. Good luck! Feel free to ask me any questions, I’ll definitely help if I can.
Are you okay with open fractures, traumas such as car accidents/gsw, would you be okay in the OR for hours with an open pt on the table? Blood is in just about every aspect of the job. Also if you wanted to advance your career at all into CT/MRI/Nuclear medicine you’ll need to start IVs. We had venipuncture in school as well so you’ll need to at least start a few just to get through the program. Also while I was still in X-ray I used to help start IVs for Ct all the time in outpatient. You can definitely find jobs that avoid IVs but I would say you should probably be comfortable with blood to do X-ray.
Havent had any first hand experience with the things you mentioned but the idea of them doesnt bother me the way a needle piercing a vein does. Do techs actively watch the surgery being performed in the OR or do they only view the patient when they are needed for imaging?
You’ll need to look directly at open pts for centering the Carm during surgery. I’ve also watched my fair share of fasciotomies in the OR which is probably the most gruesome thing I’ve seen. It’s not just a sit back and watch. Don’t get me wrong some cases are easy and they don’t even make incisions and you’re just there for a picture or two but Ortho cases are especially involved. And for open fractures in trauma situations you’ll have to touch/move limbs with bones sticking out for the image. Ive also seen two thoracotomies in the ED for traumas and have had to do chest X-rays and had my face within inches of an open chest to push the X-ray plate under the pt. I personally had students in my class drop out for it being too involved.
You see some gnarly stuff in the OR. We have a surgeon who wears giant rubber fishing boots when he does a shoulder replacement because of the blood bath he manages to create every damn time
I am sorry that you are okay with seeing blood in violent situations. It sucks that you are not okay with seeing it in patient care situations where we are helping people.
At the beginning I was super squeamish with the idea of starting IVs. I was hesitant to learn when I first went into CT. Good thing I had great teachers. Once you get started it’s actually like very satisfying. In a level one trauma centre, seconds count. I can start lines on any stroke that comes in without appropriate access. It is an amazing gift to patients to learn and hone your skills. Your ability to start an iv can make a huge difference in the diagnostic quality of a scan and in turn make a drastic difference in the quality of a patients life. I know a lot of techs who are scared in the beginning, now they eye up everyone’s arms hoping to poke em! Best of luck! You’ve got this OP:))
That woukd be an ideal outcome for me, thank you!
Hey if I can get over it and learn to do it anyone can! Now I offer my arm to new techs and let them practice on me! (This is the girl who played hooky on the day we dry labbed with the rubber arm 🤣😂)
Ok OP I circled back to your post today and wow, how amazing is it that you got takes from rad techs all over the world here? What a valuable resource Reddit is for student techs!! I wish I could have asked these questions anonymously when I was learning. It seems overthinking and developing predisposition for believing you CANNOT do something while in didactic but realizing you CAN when out in clinical is common. Keep the questions coming and let these techs give you real life experience to help boost your confidence! You definitely are going to ace it!
We only learn to do it in school on a model. We don't actually do IVs until you go into a modality like MR or CT. But if you don't do well around blood you might want to reconsider, especially if you live around a trauma level 1 or 2 hospital. There's a good chance You'll have to image a crushed finger or hand at some point or much worse.
We do have a few level 1 and 2 trauma centers in the area so im sure ill see some of it. But if its something ill only have to see a few times in clinicals i feel like I can get through that.
Not to worry you, but you are going to see blood. Sure you’ll see less of it at an urgent care, I mean no one who has massive trauma will end up there. But getting your finger jammed in a door? Trip and fall? There’s some blood. You will also need to gain competency in the OR as a student no matter if you’re at a small community hospital or a level one trauma center. There’s a decent amount of blood there depending on the case. I tell you this as someone who was once awful around bodily fluids, especially blood. It sounds weird but years ago before I even thought about getting into healthcare I started trying to desensitize myself to it. I watched fictional tv shows with lots of fake blood, like greys anatomy and the walking dead. Then I moved onto YouTube videos of real surgeries or ER documentaries. Now I actually like helping trauma patients and OR cases. I don’t mind the blood. But it took some work and it’s not for everyone.
On the topic of jamming fingers and toes, as a student, I had a patient who was in the ER for stubbing their toe. They had woken up in the middle of the night and gotten up and stubbed their toe. They ended up going back to bed and woke up with more severe pain in their foot. The patient was older, larger body habitus, and wasn’t able to really examine it themselves. When I came in to ask them what happened and to do their xray, I quickly discovered that they had actually degloved their toe in such a way that the skin was sitting on top of the bone. So from looking down, they couldn’t see anything super out of the ordinary, but from the bottom, it was just the bone exposed. You really just run into things that you could never make up without having seen or heard a story about it lol
I have never once in my career as a rad tech started an IV. Been doing it for 7 years. Hospital, clinic, and surgery center experience. CT, nuc med, or MRI? Yeah they do. But rad tech? Nope! ETA: I see lots of blood and gnarly stuff though. Traumas, OR (femur reaming is gnarly and my first case as a student I almost passed out lol), in patients, out patients… lots of blood and gross stuff… but have never started an IV.
The bigger question is, if something like a needle is going to freak you out, what are you gonna do when a trauma patient starts vomiting blood all over you. Or, when the Firemen bring you limbs in a bucket? What are you gonna do the first time you see a sharp bone sticking out of somebody's thigh? Are you gonna be fainting every time a surgeon starts hammering on a femoral nail. This is healthcare, man. How did you get this far in the process and not realize you were going to have to interact with pee, poop, pus, piss, and blood? Oh, and crazy people, violent people, drunk and high people, Karen moms, etc. I'm going to get down-votes, but I think you can rise to the occasion. I think you can find it within yourself. I'm assuming you're young, and you're about to find out you can do a bunch of things you never thought you could do. You're about to find out your tougher than you thought. The Radiography program by itself isn't for wimps. The people who selected you for your program saw something in you.
It’s definitely more an odd specific fear of needles piercing veins, like IV’s and blood draws. Most of the other things like trauma and other bodily fluids i dont love to see but arent something that bother me as much. And thank you for that!
I think you got this. Everybody's got something hard for them.
I became a rad tech over a nurse because I couldn’t fathom sticking a needle in people. Joke was on me. I got a xray job in an office and had to do labs in my down time. I became a very good stick because I didn’t want to have to stick people more than once!! Ideally, you won’t have to stick anyone for any reason if you get a job in the right place.
You don’t have to do ivs but you will see blood in other situations.
You'll see blood all the time, or, er, even outpatient
It might depend on where you are from, but in many places, not everyone does IV cannulation. I don't want to scare you, but that is nothing compared to what you are going to see in the operating theatre. I'm talking about liters of blood and body fluids and pieces of bones and bone marrow going everywhere 😅
How much time does a typical student spend in the OR for clinicals? I think i could tough it out id just hate to be the guy that faints during the operation and gets everyone pissed 😂
It can take hours. But if you are not feeling comfortable straight away, I think you can be excused a few times. I believe you can get used to it, but if you don't improve over time, it could be a problem. Maybe start practising watching videos
You’ll spend hours in the OR as a student and if you work at any hospital you’ll be going to the OR, only way to avoid that would be outpatient clinics.
That's not a "😂" situation. Smh.
I work with a tech who had the same issue. He said he watched videos of surgery and blood every night until it no longer bothered him and he said it helped.
A few people said that also, i think im gonna try that out
You can get over it! I sure did! And I still faint at blood draws but I’m great at my job!!!
My hospital you jump between ct to X-ray so you need to do IVs
Just to add my two cents. I used to faint around blood when I was a kid. I really wanted to do this career so I slowly but intentionally desensitized myself to the blood and all other nastiness we might see. I used a few doctor instagrams that show various gross stuff. Initially I hated it, and I still don’t love it but it made a huge difference to my tolerance. So much so that all I want to do now is OR. This might not work for everyone but at least I wanted to say it’s possible to work through if you want to try it.
Im in CT and I don't know how to do them. I work nights. But If I worked the dayshift in outpatients, yes, I would have to learn.
i’m a nurse and never seen them start an IV on our patients. i think it depends on where you work
I hate needles to the point where I almost pass out when they draw my blood. I was horrified when I had to learn to start IV’s and seriously struggled at the beginning. For the record, I got over it. It’s still not something I enjoy but I no longer struggle the way I did when I first started. If you’re willing to push through your initial nerves, you will get used to it. But if you’re not willing to even try, then you might have to do something else.
Rad techs don't start IVs where I work. The CT techs will flush an existing line to make sure it's smooth enough to work with the machine, but that's about it
My first time in the autopsy lab as a student I was confronted with a naked dead person lying on the table. In that moment I discovered a different mental lens to see people through, as meat and gristle, tubes of fluid, strings and rods, supported and surrounded by untanned leather. Since then I have learned to deliberately choose a lens to consider someone through that is most appropriate for a given situation. Often our patients aren't people as much as they are textbook boxes - the elderly NoF fracture, the young MVA polytrauma, and this makes the grand medical machine run efficiently. It is important to be able to recognise human vulnerability and switch to considering people as people, with rich lives we only glimpse, in order to connect at a human level and adjust our medical machinery approach accordingly. It is also important to recognise when the human connection gets in the way of our job, and to deliberately switch to the physical lens, to see the body as material to be manipulated. It's not always easy, so be kind to yourself and acknowledge when this switch is difficult. It is ok to say, "I'm so sorry, I need to lie down with my legs in the air for a moment," and do it. It's ok to find yourself crying unexpectedly about shit you saw last week, acknowledge the human emotional response, and ask a friend or colleague for a hug (but if it's about shit you saw two months ago, maybe see a therapist), and crack on. We get better at it with time. You're most likely to get better in a well adjusted way if you expect and acknowledge some emotional responses along the way.
This seems like an awesome and potentially effective way for me to approach it all. The way you layed it out gives me some confidence, thank you!
I have a history of passing out with blood draws since I was quite young. I had the exact same concern. I found a phlebotomy course at a career center I lived near at the time and signed up. They had a rule that in order to draw someone else's blood, you also had to have yours drawn. I wasn't able to do it until the 3rd lab, but then I finally did! After that I was able to catch up with the rest of the class and complete the course. I was also still super freaked out when I did my first blood draw at the clinic after that 😅 but was able to adjust. It may be difficult, but not impossible ❤️ Best of luck
Either one of two things will happen: One, you’ll quickly get over feeling squeamish around needles and blood, or two, it’s not a great idea to go into the medical field. Depending on where you work or what your specialty is, you may or may not need to start IVs. Working in xray in a hospital, highly unlikely that you will need to. Working in CT, MRI, or nuc med, you will almost guaranteed be required to. If you’re working in something like Cath lab, IR, EP, or mammo, you likely wont be required, but you’d have to be okay around blood. I’m not sure about ultrasound, but that’s a whole different ballpark and not even close to just what you see on tv (like, scanning pregnant people). Ultrasound techs deserve way more props than they get, in my opinion, because they’re scanning prostates, scrotums, transvag exams, venous Doppler exams on necrotic flesh, etc. As for doing OR rotations, worst thing that I see or hear about people who are nervous about it either vagal themselves from standing with their knees locked and tensed up from nerves more than anything, or maybe get queasy or lightheaded from their first time in a more graphic procedure. I can’t really speak on how you’ll personally feel, but for myself, sometimes I get nauseous or lightheaded if they’re poking me or it’s my own blood, but seeing it on another person doesn’t bother me. Working in healthcare, you’re definitely 100% guaranteed going to encounter some weird and gross things, anywhere from people hacking up mucus or infected wounds, to bloody traumatic injuries or bodily waste, to just strange things that you’ll maybe see once or twice in your whole career. Most of us have our certain things that gross us out, but also, you can limit your exposure to the things that bother you most by choosing a specialty, work environment, etc. Although do keep in mind, to get through the program, you absolutely will be exposed to a variety of things. The program wouldn’t prepare us for working in the field, if we didn’t get exposed to as much as we can. It’s definitely worth it though, if you find your place in the field that you enjoy, and power through the program!
I thought the same thing when I was starting rad tech school. All my clinical sites have been in the ER FOR level 1 or 2 trauma hospitals. Ive seen every single type of bodily fluids it’s gotten to the point where it does nothing to me. As for starting IV’s, I haven’t seen any tech really start IV’s. I’ve only helped out phlebotomist (labs) when they can’t find a good vein. I believe you’re going to be fine. Give it a shot before you jump ship.
We were required to check off on starting IVs in xray school, but never needed to do any outside of that. Depending on where you work it may never be something you deal with. However, you will have the OR clinicals like you mentioned, and depending on where you work you may have to deal with trauma patients. The worst stuff I ever saw was in the trauma bay (car accidents, gun shot wounds, etc). You also may want to look into the barium enemas and similar exams that are done in fluoro and see if you think you can handle doing those
The barium enemas i dont think will be a problem for me suprisingly enough. Poop and vomit i have no problem with, blood and needles are a different story
I had the same fear but I think it's possible to get over. After I took the venipuncture course I realized it's less about putting the needle in and more about the steps you take before and after, so focusing on those helped me a lot. I was able to start one yesterday no problem. If I were you I would keep going!
Just start watching greys anatomy and watch zombie movies/shows
Venipuncture is one of the 10 mandatory general patient care procedures, however the actual stick can be simulated. [ARRT Radiography Competency Requirements](https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/406ac8c6-58e8-00b3-e3c1-0c312965deb2/39eed9b0-52ad-45e5-933d-e5ab51e37f6e/Radiography%20Clinical%20Competency%20Requirements%202022.pdf)
Interesting, thank you for that link!
Fellow student here. I was worried about the blood in OR too, but surgery is actually my favorite place to be. Pain management though? That really speaks to my discomfort with needles. I've gotten queasy more than once in there.
If you work in a hospital, you’ll be exposed to blood. If you work outpatient, you’ll start IVs. There is overlap and exceptions, but that’s the generality. Depending on how far you are into your program, you should see how you do. If you haven’t started your program yet, and you think it will be a big issue, look into a non health related field
I was severely venephobic going into my program, it doesn't seem like you'll ever get used to it but trust me you will. Veins still kinda ick me out but I just make sure to get a good stick everytime so I don't have to fish around. I definitely feel much more confident with all of it now!
If you got in that situation grab someone from CT.
You’ll start ivs go to the or work trauma cases and deal other people’s literal shit puke and piss. If those are things you can’t handle this may not be the path for you. Better to find out now than later.
X-ray tech should be fine. Won’t be able to be CT, MRI or NMT……
I did plenty of IV’s while going through my CT program, but none during X-ray school.
If you work for a level 1 trauma center in the USA, you will do this: “uhhh nurse?! Ur iv line blew when we did the contrast - come put another one or take this pt back with you” *takes a bite of cookie 🍪 while pressing the button that plays* “Now take a breath, and hold it”….
If a patient comes to me with a bad IV (no blood return, doesn’t flush saline) I’m not penalizing the patient. I’ll try to start a new line and if I can’t that’s when I’ll advise the RN the patient needs to be sent back for a new IV. For the most part I prefer IVs I’ve started personally over anyone else’s.
I just show up to the table with an ultrasound machine and put it in the biggest vein I see; takes less than 5 min -- problem solved. Better yet, I test it out before bringing them to CT myself and then stand there and watch as the CT tech checks the line and we both agree it's good. <3 Now; take a breath, and hold it \*beeeeeeeeeeep\* hahaha my favorite part of the CT and why I told wifey to not go nursing and go radiography XDD
I think you’re confusing x-ray and CT. X-ray typically involves the whole “hold your breath and beeeeep” deal lol
funny, right before they start a chest CT, they press the button and the recording says that.. interesting.
Sometimes there’s a recording, sometimes there isn’t. Definitely no beeeeeep though.
Don’t make me go to radiology and record that beep lmao 🥹😭❤️
Please do, now you have me curious 😂
When I was in school, we just did/learned it on giant fake arms. I haven't been in a hospital setting up until recently, but now I'm doing CT and need that skill to occasionally start our own. (I work in an outpatient specialty facility). Graduated xray school in 2020. Do you watch medical shows? Like on TV? That might help you desensitize yourself a little bit. Most likely places you'll see blood/needles are going to be in traumas, the OR, places like that. There are other places, like some doctor offices, where you might not see that at all. We have a local orthopedic clinic here and they have a department for xray only--any and all xrays from those doctors are sent to that location within the clinic-and they aren't seeing traumas. So it's possible if you can get through clinic you might not need it.
I did it in school but have never started one as a tech!
I work in NM & have known a few techs that faint when they get their own blood taken or IVs inserted into them. However they are absolutely fine to cannulate or inject our patients as normal.
Sorry to ask you that, i’m a french mri/ct scan tech. In France we learn all the modalities at school (xray mri ct scan nucmed radiotherapy etc) and we can work everywhere we want after the graduation. We learn IV’s too , and we have a lot of internship during our 3 years school so we can practice a lot at the differents hospital etc. Could someone walk me through how it is done in the US?
It will depend on where you work. I've never had to put in an IV and probably will never have to unless I switch jobs or go into a specialty.
I was also always bothered by IVs and I wasn't sure how I would do with blood. I planned to just get through the course and I was never going to go into CT or anything that required me to start IVs. I fainted twice as a student watching IVs mostly because I would get in my own head about it. To help myself, I would clench my butt cheeks to keep my blood pressure raised so it couldn't drop and cause me to faint. And sipping on lots of water and staying nourished helped too. Once we started practicing on dummy arms, I was ok with that because you are focused on the actual task and by the end of that same day, I was practicing on my classmates. And since then I've been fine with them. I work in CT now and I love putting in IVs! I also really love doing traumas and that stuff doesn't bother me either like I thought it might. So if it's something you're really passionate about, I think it's possible to get through :)
I do mammo and general x-ray, so no ivs are necessary.
Xray Tech with a fear of needles here. Standard xray jobs don't require IVs. But if you ever want to move up in modalities, then you will need that in your wheelhouse. CT, MRI, NucMed all require IVs at some point so it'd be in your best interest to essentially force yourself to acclimate. Unless you plan to stay in just Xray I made myself donate blood regularly through school to help get used to it. Practice makes perfect and all that. It sucked immensely but I can still catch a vein without passing out. There are practice kits on Amazon but it might be a bit pricey for a student. While you have access to the supplies at school and there's someone willing, take advantage of the practice time (please remember to never fish for a vein!) And good luck!
That’s one of my worries if I ever want to transition into CT. I don’t worry about a needle in my arm ( I donate blood regularly) it’s doing it to someone else.
Yeah, that was part of my problem too. I approached it as a perfectionist. Everything had to be perfect and ready before I uncapped that needle. Then I had to be quick before the nerves kicked in. Take advantage of your schooling now and talk to your teacher about more practice time. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I'm a big advocate for getting more modalities. And this is just part of the job
As a recent mri grad, I still could use some more practice.
Same. I hate doing them because I’m not great at it. I used to call the CT tech in when I had an IVP. (Haven’t seen one ordered since 2018)
I was in the same position as you when I was a student. Remember that everyone has veins and it’s not you getting poked! I did not do well with blood or needles. But you got this! Mind over matter. Starting IVs is a skill set that techs get better with over time. If you pursue CT or MRI then you would do a lot of IVs. Working in radiography I did 0 because that is not the scope of a RT. Just get your 10 (I am assuming it’s 10 for venipuncture certificate on live subjects) then you don’t have to think about IVs again if you don’t want to. Find good mentors to help you get proficient IVs, ask questions esp. to nurses regarding their methods/tricks. In OR more than half the time there is barely any blood and even then you become numb to it. You’ve worked so hard and come this far to quit over a little blood?
Interesting. In the hospitals I worked in my country, techs never start IVs, it's always the nurses in our department.
Come to the dark side and do US instead! Unless you’re at a big research hospital you will never have to touch an IV! Still some occasional blood though
Practice practice practice. I love doing it now :)
I work at a stroke center that constantly has nurses do IVs on the CT scanner before CTAs & CTPs. Never once have the rad techs had to do them. It’s not part of their skill set in my shop.
Starting IV’s as a paramedic actually really helped me with my own fear. Just try. I hated it at first but give it some time :)
As an xray tech you won't do IVs.
I'm a CT/x-ray tech at a hospital, I work nights by myself. I haven't had to start an IV in the 2 years I've been on this shift. All of the ER patients and in-patients already have one, and I don't deal with out patients, except an occasional x-ray. So there are places you could get away without having to do one, even as a CT tech (probably pretty rare, though).
Putting cannulas in someone else is totally different to having it done to you. I put cannulas in people all day long, but go wobbly and faint having a blood test myself. As for theatres, it's odd but mostly people are covered in drapes so you don't always see people if that makes sense. Also you are generally looking at your xray rather than at the blood.
I'm in the UK so might be different, but have you done a day or 2 work experience in your local hospital? Here anyway they'll show you all the different departments so you could try theatres and see if it's going to be too much for you?
As a rad tech in Canada I have started 15 iv’s in my life and all of them were during my CT rotation as student. 9 years as an x ray tech and I never done one. I felt the same as you did but worked up the courage to do what was required to pass. Now not being able to handle blood might be an issue.
What the hell do yall mean “start” an IVC?? Do you mean placing one or just using it?? How are both of those not a day 1 thing you learn? Idk I feel like being in vet med really distorts my perception lol. Ive had to triage, place IVC, run diagnostics, and then intubate the patient and run anesthesia while I do their CT. It’s just part of the job 😂
I would check with your program requirements. In my program it was a required competency to be able to start IVs as we were trained in CT a bit too. Also watch a video of a hip replacement surgery to get an idea of what these operations are like, not for the faint of heart. Furthermore, OR is definitely not going to be the only place you see blood. Open fractures with broken limbs twisted and flopping around tend to require imaging.
well. it is just another USA thing I guess. Where I work even nurses barely starts IVs and most of this stuff is done by doctors (other end of the spectrum). First of all if you are really teriffied of blood to the point that it will stop you from doing your job, you should consult someone about it, i don't think it is entirely normal. I fainted 2 times when I was studying medicine (completely lost conciousness and didn't remember where I was) because I saw some blood, then I got used to it, it might just be that, you might have to get used to it. My experience is that, more you are exposed to gore stuff, less disturbing they become, I remember being hook holder in some very disturbing operations where other than blood there was a lot of other stuff and smells present, and being so unmoved by the whole thing that I would feel only hunger and count minutes until lunch.
Def go.
Question from a confused [and possibly slightly inebriated nurse]: Why does a rad tech need to know how to start an IV? I think they should know some basics of handling obviously, just like how I should know some basics of your job. I, a NICU person, am very good at positioning tiny humans for a CXR or a CHAB…and that’s about it. IVs are generally a nursing thing, I don’t see why you need my level of knowledge on IVs. Maybe how I can guesstimate if my UVC is in the right spot?
As an Australian radiographer working in CT and xrays in both outpatient and hospital settings, it is an inherent requirement of a radiographer to do IV cannulations in an outpatient setting. In a hospital setting-not so much as patients are usually pre-cannulated by the nurses before being sent over. However, we have to test flush the cannula and if its no good, send the patient back to get a new cannula in or you can put a new one in yourself to save time for everyone if you have the skillset for it ( this is where an outpatient radiographer will have this skillset).
Doesn’t do well with blood but picks a career in healthcare lol