Celebrating Joys Of A Good I.V. Nurse

The smell of Swedish meatballs filled Room 1062.

And there was talk of someone named Ruth showing up with her swimsuit.

For the moment, though, Suzanne and Ingrid were the only ones at the party. And neither seemed headed for the hot tub.

But it was early. Friday’s annual after-work get-together of the local chapter of the Intravenous Nursing Society was just getting started at Cavanaugh’s Inn at the Park.

The decorations were up. And an hors d’oeuvres buffet was ready and waiting. Now all they needed was a few more nurses.

“This is to celebrate ourselves,” said Suzanne, a Group Health employee whose exclamation of choice is “Uff dah.”

I.V. nurses, certified specialists in inserting and monitoring intravenous lines, have to salute themselves because nobody else is going to do it. Though patients tend to like it when the people sticking needles in their veins know what they’re doing, some health care providers have determined that this is work generalists can handle.

Before long, others started showing up at the party.

“Nice decorations, Sue,” said a new arrival who had a great laugh. “Is that a fish or a sun?”

Another nurse put the TV on a station that shows country music videos. That inspired Ingrid to wonder if perhaps anyone else wanted to hear her Joni Mitchell tape.

Two women with their backs to the buffet laughed about some guy at a Spokane hospital who was suspected of stealing flowers and presenting them to good-looking lab techs.

One said she liked to see men in short-sleeve shirts because she was so used to scanning for good veins.

Another told about how a little printed notice at her hospital marking I.V. Nurses Day, which had been Thursday, had to be recalled and corrected when it was discovered that the announcement’s illustration showed a catheter and a urine bag instead of intravenous lines.

One nurse adjusted her pager, referring to it as “the leech.”

Then the party got down to the real stuff of same-field professionals getting together to socialize: griping.

But there was something special about this complaining. As the nurses chewed on changes in the health care system, they didn’t just focus on the implications for themselves. They talked about patients.

“After all,” said one, “that’s what we’ll all be one day.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits gatherings in the Inland Northwest.