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Thread: radial artery catheterism, help me!

  1. #1
    Junior Member
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    Jan 2011
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    Question radial artery catheterism, help me!

    hello everybody,
    I'm an italian student working on her graduation thesis and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about the radial artery catheterism procedure.
    I'm actually referring to its use as a way to monitor BP and to take arterial blood samples.
    Who, in your ward, is the person in charge of this procedure?
    (leva the person)
    Are nurses in your country allowed to perform it?
    thanking you in advance
    Costanza

  2. #2
    Hello. Not sure if there is a language barrier here, but we call that radial arterial line insertion (not catheterism, or whatever you called it.)

    Many places in the US have respiratory therapists do this. Anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists or sometimes a technician will do it in a pre-op/OR setting. Physicians will sometimes do it (often resident physicians or medical students will do it in a teaching hospital.)

    It is the rare institution that will have nursing be responsible for this, and I only know a handful of nurses that have ever been trained to do this or have any proficiency at it. Arterial lines are primarily used in critical care settings so there is very little need for most hospital nurses to know how to do it. Most of the nurses that know how to do it have learned it somewhere along the line in another position prior to going to nursing school. U.S. States have individual practice acts so I cannot speak for every state but in my state it is within the nurse practice act to perform this procedure if appropriately trained to do so.

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