IV

Starting IVs is one of the most exciting skills new nurses learn, and it can also be one of the most difficult. While threading a plastic catheter into a vein may seem straightforward when reading about it in a book, in practice, many things can go wrong or make the process more difficult. You may hear many nurses talk about “blowing a vein” when they were not successful in an IV start. However, what does it mean to blow a vein?