Read on Twitter
This is an excellent central line tips and tricks thread! Will add a few of my own below https://twitter.com/emily_fri/status/1295067259476545537
1. Pop your lido and put it somewhere you can draw it up without contaminating yourself (this way you don’t need a second person to hold it up for you)
2. Pre-gel your probe and learn to pick it up from its holster in the sterile sleeve. Make sure nothing around you might acccidentally touch or bump into.
3. Immediately before getting sterile, hit the freeze/unfreeze button and show your helper where it is (assuming you have a helper). Many machines time out after a set period of time, so this is the last thing I do before I gown + glove. Always plug the machine in.
4. Thread the wire with the curve towards the patient’s midline - this helps ensure that the wire won’t accidentally thread laterally and loop itself into EJ/subclavian/elsewhere you don’t want it to go.
5. When dilating, keep a nice shallow angle to avoid kinking the wire and make little micro movements in and out with the wire itself when advancing to make sure it’s still nice and loose.
6. When putting in dialysis lines - really important to make sure you’re using the wire that comes with the vascath set (and not the one that comes in the central line kit - it’s too short)
