I am not good at placing female foley catheters. I really think I would rather run a code blue than put in a difficult-to-place foley in a female patient. I think, in the 7 years I've been a nurse, I've only put foleys in 2 females, both while in nursing school. Both were post-partum (where everything just seemed to be a wild guess on my part).
Last week, one of my CNAs came up to me, panick clearly in her voice, that I was needed in a patient's room. We started run-walking down the hallway, as I played the ACLS algorithms through my head (the usual reason for these page-charge-nurse-by-sprint is a code), the CNA told me they couldn't get a foley in a patient.
I ended up having to send another nurse in there to give it a try.
Later, my monitor tech told me I started to pace through the nurses' station like a first-time father awaiting a breech birth.
Anyway, while I was looking for a link for this blog entry, I found this web page (probably NSFW) selling a video of how to properly insert a foley catheter into a female. Obviously, the person writing the description is a bit confused about the anatomy:
I mean, even I can get a foley into the vagina... which is usually the damn problem in the first place.
We've all had a foley in the vagina. Here's a little trick: keep it there. So when you go at it the second time you know where not to aim.
Posted by: Labor Nurse | August 12, 2007 at 07:09 PM
I've done hundreds of 'em. I'm always the one they ask for when they've got a three-hundred-pounder who needs a cath.
Not that I'm proud...
Posted by: shrimplate | July 28, 2007 at 09:07 AM
Heh. ;) I think I, too, have only placed a foley into a woman on two occasions, both in medical school... and yeah, that vagina is a lot easier to find than the urethral opening. (Now those are words I never thought I'd leave in a comment box.)
Posted by: Maria | July 15, 2007 at 07:35 AM