I start nursing school on the 11th (yay!) and have been reading about how everyone is excited, anxious, and nervous about what is to come. I, too, feel the same way and am looking forward to the first day. I read through some of the posts from the thread discussing fear of needles and blood. I just have to ask, is anyone else nervous about having classmates draw your own blood and giving you injections? During orientation in November, we had to sign a form stating that we would allow our classmates to draw blood/give injections on us. I've had experience performing these procedures on dogs and cats, and even though I know humans are different, I don't have a problem with the thought of me learning and performing the procedures on my classmates. However, I am nervous as heck thinking about my future classmates practicing on me. I have experienced my vein collapsing which almost made me pass out, but that was also partly due to the fact that I was dehydrated and the nurse was having a difficult time with my vein due to that.
Is there anyone else, besides me, who has a fear of this? lol I hope I don't get a partner with a shaky hand. We all have to learn somehow, though. :)
They don't let us do that stuff on each other and I'm rather glad. I wouldn't mind giving and receiving injections with classmates, I guess, but I'm a hard stick and I don't really want someone inexperienced trying to draw blood on me. Everyone has to learn some time, I know, and I'm in that position myself as a novice with only one semester of an ADN program behind me. However, even the really experienced people have trouble getting it from me! I definitely think it would be better to learn on some willing person who has big, stand-up veins. :eek:
For subcu injections we just practiced on one of those funny pads and then were let loose in clinicals. On my second to last day of the semester's clinical I did a subcu injection on my patient and was pretty nervous but it wasn't bad. My patient didn't complain so I guess it didn't feel too bad! I felt really great after that. Injections are just not scaring me but blood/veins is something I'm going to have to work on myself with. Last semester I was squirming in class while we watched a video on doing finger sticks!
Kringe38
188 Posts
They don't let us do that stuff on each other and I'm rather glad. I wouldn't mind giving and receiving injections with classmates, I guess, but I'm a hard stick and I don't really want someone inexperienced trying to draw blood on me. Everyone has to learn some time, I know, and I'm in that position myself as a novice with only one semester of an ADN program behind me. However, even the really experienced people have trouble getting it from me! I definitely think it would be better to learn on some willing person who has big, stand-up veins.
:eek:
For subcu injections we just practiced on one of those funny pads and then were let loose in clinicals. On my second to last day of the semester's clinical I did a subcu injection on my patient and was pretty nervous but it wasn't bad. My patient didn't complain so I guess it didn't feel too bad! I felt really great after that. Injections are just not scaring me but blood/veins is something I'm going to have to work on myself with. Last semester I was squirming in class while we watched a video on doing finger sticks!