Aspirate Always?

It's fairly new. I freaked a couple of years ago when an MA injected my youngest and didn't aspirate, but I came here and found out it is the norm now. Nothing wrong with aspirating, but I guess it's a step that has been determined to be unnecessary. I would go back to the MAs and tell them that aspiration is no longer recommended as necessary and that this is what students are being taught now.

CDC says no evidence aspiration is necessary (also never do IM in buttocks):

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/ed/encntrs02/downloads/enc02_admin.pdf

I am not sure what is the 'norm', but we were taught the following on aspiration :

IM - I must

ID - I Don't

SC - Some Could

i wonder if what your injecting and the volume, make any difference?

Maybe this is only for vaccines?

I was taught to aspirate.

Fresh out of nursing school and we were taught not to aspirate for IM injections.

Fresh out of nursing school and we were taught not to aspirate for IM injections.

Do you have a text ref for us? Hoping your books are still handy. Info is hard to chase down.

We were always taught to aspirate IM inj's , what can I say, that was a long time ago....and pre-PCA era when we were giving narcotics IM pretty exclusively in postops, I have hit a blood vessel twice, I will continue to aspirate IM's, It doesn't prolong the pain, if you give a good shot, the pt doesn't feel the needle per say, just the irritant of whatever you're injecting into the muscle, and that is what it is,... aspirating will have no affect on that. I rather take the proper precautions.

graduating in january and we were taught to aspirate for im's. we did a peds rotation in a clinic however and the nurses and ma's there said in rl they do not aspirate-takes too much time.

here is something from the article that i didn't know:

it's not

necessary to change the needle between reconstitution or drawing

the vaccine and administering it unless the needle is

contaminated or bent. modern steel needles are not dulled by

entry into a vaccine vial.

thanks for the link anonymurse :)

I was taught to aspirate, but to be honest, most of the time, I don't...because I forget. I make sure that I have the correct site, but, otherwise, I have to say that I am guilty of not doing it. It is great to know that it is now documented that this is not necessary. I always thought that it was a silly thing, especially in the deltoid.

We were taught to aspirate.

I was also taught to aspirate for IM injections.

On the flip side, I had a similar experience to the OP about 2 months ago. At that time, I was precepting a new LPN on my floor and he was going to administer the influenza vaccine to a patient. Before stepping foot in the patient's room, I had him pull up & review the hospital's policy on giving injections. Just like I was taught in school, the policy states that you must aspirate on IM injections. The LPN just looked at me with a confused expression and said something like "We were never taught to aspirate in school because the instructors said the chances of hitting a blood vessel aren't that great". I gently & politely explained to him that, even though it wasn't the way he was taught in school, he had to follow the policy of the hospital. I think this made him so nervous because he "forgot" to do it and before I could even stop him, the vaccine was administered.

The ironic part is that I attended the same school as this LPN and had many of the same instructors as him. I guess things changed in the few years since I graduated.