Practice intramuscular injection students on each other, Australia

[mumlauf]

Practice intramuscular injection with nurse students on each other is standard way how to teach/learn intramuscular injection in Europe - UK/Germany/Etc. Of course only with students agreement.

Please help me if you have experience with this method in Australia by your statement - as a teacher or student. Or if there is anything which says this practice is forbidden in Australia.

It is very important to know for me, my girlfriend taught (we are both from Europe) by this method and now is facing official complaint from her supervisor - who said it was wrong to do it, unprofessional, against Nurse's Code of Professional Conduct etc., many terrible words, but not explain a word why, just said so. Thank you in advance for any genuine information.

[mumlauf]

Thank you suga_junkie for sharing your experience.

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

I trained in the UK way back in the 80's and we never practiced on each other, we used oranges and then patients and even to this day I remember my first injection on a patient. I have let students/newly qualified nurses practice taking blood on me because I have good veins but that was my choice

[smilenurse]

When I was a nursing student we practiced in class on a orange.

[mumlauf]

Thank you all. I have found other thread in this forum where is discussion about IM injection practice on each other and also some discussions on other sites. It seems that practice IM injections on each other (even IV injections etc.) is more common for medical students, also there are nurses from Europe and USA who have this experience. Unfortunately no experience from Australia, where, bluntly said, nurse students cure oranges :-).

And also there is visible trend that schools/universities leave this method because of liability reasons. It seems that make some expenses on buying fake arms, fat pads, mannequins, simulators etc. is safer for them and good enough to prepare students for practice.

Still will be glad for your experience with learning/teaching intramuscular injection on each other in Australia.

[smilenurse]

Also we practices on a sponge.

[Hagabel]

I trained in the UK early 90's and we learnt on oranges and then first injection was on a patient under supervision. I see no reason to practice invasive stuff on other students.

[ceridwyn]

Maybe the poster can do research on the technique of Australian nurses giving IM injections on patients and how efficient or inefficient their education is and compare this to their nurses outcomes in giving IM injections in their previous country. I Would be interested.

[mumlauf]

Thank you. Nice idea but it is very hard to do such a thing with some relevant results, here is for example study which shows at least some of the problems:

Reducing Needle Stick Injuries in Healthcare Occupations: An Integrative Review of the Literature

As I stated in #15 after my research about this topic:

And also there is visible trend that schools/universities leave this method because of liability reasons. It seems that make some expenses on buying fake arms, fat pads, mannequins, simulators etc. is safer for them and good enough to prepare students for practice.

[ceridwyn]

I am trying to understand why an article by used on needle stick injuries that has some leaning towards double gloving and more education on infectious diseases gives any evidence to back up claims that it is okay to direct nursing students to give IM injections to each other. Or because nurses Practise drawing up and giving on devices such as 'oranges' they have more needle stick injuries! Can you explain the connection?

[mumlauf]

You suggested research on this topic and I explained that there are so many uncertainties that it is hard to get some relevant results...

Especially the part: "According to the policy of the NHS in the UK, it is compulsory when staff sustain a needle-stick injury to report the incident [3]. However, evidence from the US suggests that more than half of all sharps-related injuries are not reported [1]. Poor reporting of sharps-related injuries reveals a failure to appreciate the potential consequences of such injuries [4]. Rates of detection are also low, for example, only 11% of glove perforations were detected by the physician in a study investigating the use of blunt needles during obstetrical laceration repair surgeries [5]."

And this is only small part of the whole IMI thing.

It is much easier to use simple logic. More practice = better results. Thats it, why you want to do some research about it?

Off course the best is to go gradually and practice, you can use orange at the start, better some simulator, then under supervision practice on patients... or you can practice under supervision voluntarily with other students on each other, especially when all your teachers before let you prick only oranges and you have no idea how to give IMI to real people, you have no confidence or worse, you are scared of it. And there are only few days left to finish your studies and after that you are on your own and you can only hope that somebody will help you later.

I'm not going to continue in this direction because there is no point in it. I got your opinion that "doing anything that is evasive, is not done to fellow students". Thank you.

Also the most important is what I wrote before - schools/universities leave this method because of liability reasons. The trend is that for schools/universities/teachers is simply easier to let students prick oranges, not patients or even each other. This way it is safe. And students? They will learn later on patients without supervision or maybe with some help, who cares, they can always pay to insurance companies to protect them if some patient get injured, that is how the business works.

[MuppetAus]

I'm horrified to hear this. There are so many risks and potential legal implications for doing invasive procedures by students to other students.

When I was training we would transfer each other and position each other in a bed so that we had an understanding of what the experience was like for a patient but we never ever did any kind of practice that involve invasive procedurs.

[mumlauf]

So I guess you are horrified to give IM to patients because there are so many risks and potential legal implications, right? Do you actually know what intramuscular injection is? Do you know that everybody (or at least 99,9 % of Australians) got IM at least once but usually many more times and guess what? We are still living. It is not drilling into your brain. But yes, you can live your dream in the world with no invasive procedures.