IV Catheter Placement Errors in Veterinary Medicine 

Kendra the Vet Tech (LVT) goes over the common errors with IV catheter placement. This unique video provides you with the opportunity to physically see what the errors are in an effort to gain better understanding and boost your confidence. We get started with a routine IV catheter placement on a dummy patient, just in case some of the viewers have not seen or attempted an IV catheter placement. We start with site selection, considerations for placement and move on to clipping the area. Reminders for clipping etiquette (be sure that we do not angle the blade up and run the teeth along the patient's skin) to prevent clipper burn in our patients. Moving on to cleaning the area with the reminder to touch the vein as much as you would like before cleaning, not after. Once the site is selected, assertively place the catheter into the vein, advance the catheter off the stylet and proceed with removing the stylet. Taping preference will vary by individual, pick what works best for you. After we wrap some vet wrap around our taping job, we are ready to move on to talking about common errors.
Checking out our dummy vein that has "windows" cut into it, we can now see what is happening in our dummy vein. The first issue that is addressed is: the stylet will make it into the vein first. The flash of blood that you see is the beveled edge getting into the vein. If you look closely you will see that the beveled edge has some distance between it and the catheter. By slightly dropping your angle of your stylet and advancing again ever so slightly, this will get the catheter safely into the vein without puncturing through the back side. Next, see what exactly a burred catheter is and understand the thought process behind starting over with a new catheter if you burr one. We wrap up our errors portion of the video with a demonstration showing the need to always pull your catheter back onto your stylet if there is an issue, rather than pushing the stylet back into the catheter. The catheter is easily punctured by the stylet and that can lead to a piece of the catheter breaking off under the skin (or in the vein) of your patient.
The video concludes with "driving instructions", Kendra shows how she uses her second finger and thumb to control the stylet separate from the catheter itself, which she uses her index finger nail to control. Then, watch a catheter being fed into the dummy vein through the window display.