PCA Experience

[lareine23]

Hi,
I am a nursing student that will graduate in December. I am currently a PCA at a hospital in New York. Sometimes I work in the ICU where I know there is a whole lot I can learn. I want to know how to go about getting the nurses I work with to allow me to practice some of the various skills like hanging IVs, doing assessments, reading the various monitors and maybe even drawing blood work. I'm just not sure how to get that relationship with the nurses or if it is appropriate. I also want to get a mentor because I think that would be helpful for me. How do I go about obtaining those things, any suggestions or resources?

[AmandaWIRN]

As an aide, it isn't within your scope of practice to do many of the things you listed. Perhaps you could be trained at your hospital to do phlebotomy or be a telemetry tech (read monitors), but only an RN can do patient assessments, and only RN's & some LPN's can hang IV's. The best way to learn a lot in your current position is to observe the nurses a lot, & ask if you can watch while they do certain procedures, etc.