Susan Watson31 said:Do you actually have any arguments to back that up?
I sure do. In my day-to-day work, regardless of what kind of surgery we're doing that needs anesthesia, we pretty much stick to the grey ones (16G) or the green ones (18G) if the grey ones aren't within reach. We usually save the pink ones (20G) for those tricky cases where we already know the veins are going to be a nightmare to hit, while the blue (22G) and yellow (24G) catheters are strictly reserved for kids.
Someone coming in for cosmetic surgery isn't exactly swollen up or "poked all over" like a patient who's been stuck in a hospital bed for days, where the veins are so shot you're forced to use a blue catheter just to find any access at all.
Basically, when you see pink—and especially blue—catheters being used on adults for anesthesia in a clinical setting, it’s a massive red flag. It tells me the people trying to establish that line don't have the hands for it, and they clearly don't understand the scenarios they're walking into, nor do the people giving them the green light!
The fact that the report mentions "the doctor had to go in and do it himself..." is a dead giveaway that there wasn't even an anesthesiologist or an anesthesia tech on site.
It's common knowledge that most doctors have zero business trying to set peripheral IV lines; nine times out of ten, they just make a complete mess of it... And honestly, seeing a catheter taped down all amateurishly with "tape upon tape" is just ridiculous, especially when you're dealing with a blue one.
That's one thing.
But here's an even bigger issue: even though you can technically push meds or run an infusion through a blue catheter (though the flow is pretty slow), that needle sits so shallow in the vein that any little movement—regardless of how much tape you slap on it—can easily cause it to slip out, leading to the meds leaking into the surrounding tissue.
And I shouldn't even have to point out that this was supposed to be "local" anesthesia, where they described all these sudden movements and jolts.
Just thinking about it quickly... any situation that requires a fast response (like a sudden drop in blood pressure, for example) really highlights how useless a blue catheter is in a crisis.
Anyway, if anyone from that clinic is lurking on this forum... they know deep down I'm right. If they actually care about providing even a basic standard of care—let alone top-tier service—they won't cut corners by skipping a hospital anesthesiologist and a tech to do their jobs properly. Because you can only push things so far before everything hits the fan... and once things start breaking or turning into a total disaster, calling 911 to rush someone to the nearest hospital should be the last thing on their mind.