Demonstrating enema help please!

bitter_betsy, BSN · May 22, 2021

Mine is too but after doing 5 this week.... how about utilizing a balloon or a baggie somehow? Can't tie it but maybe a rubber band that would allow the tube to pass through similar to a spinchter? Depending on the color of the object you could also see how quickly you were instilling the fluid. I'm not sure how you would secure the balloon/bag (another student holding it?). I also don't know how you could replicate passing beyond the blockage if possible (cream cheese comes to mind but its probably because I'm hungry).

But in order to make it real, you have to use fart spray and make your "patient" whine about holding it in for more than 13.2 seconds because before you hit 250 ml its already leaking out and they have to get up because they can't hold it....

Honestly - this is a great thing to do for students. I didn't get to do one in clinicals and for whatever reason I do them ALL THE TIME as an ER nurse. I had to learn to set up the bags, how to adjust different patients based on their mobility, and even how to just give one on the bed for a non-mobile patient (which is the hardest because it makes such a giant mess - especially if they were incontinent to begin with and its more of a "flushing" process than an enema process).

Oh and don't forget to teach how to use a bedside commode with either personal belonging bags or chucks to make clean up easier! The amount of nurses that make their techs have to clean out their bedside commodes astounds me.

Good luck - hopefully it will at least prompt an idea for you.

feelix, RN · May 22, 2021

Make two concentric circles on a cardboard. The inner circle should be about 5mm and the outer circle about 1cm. Make a hole with a pen at the inner cirle, then cut slits with a box cutter out to the outer circle. Now you have a sphincter ready to be used. You can actually make multiple of those if one breaks.

kfynn589 · Jun 3, 2021

These are great ideas! Thank you!

Steven Peterson · Jan 31, 2022

My ex is a nurse who trained in Sri Lanka. She'd told me that, in her class, students had to take turns being the mannequin for various demos, practice, and clinicals.

Apparently she drew the short straw on enema day because she had to have about 3 different enemas in front of the class. She also had to practice & demo with a lab partner in a semi-open lab environment. The unit was about a week long. I guess they do a lot more with enemas in Indian medicine than we do. I was glad when that week was over (let's just say she wasn't the only manniquin. It was a real {brown} eye opener so to speak. ?

I can't even imagine it in front of your own class though. She said it did cure her of embarrasment & body shame (believe me, she is Indian/Asian, gorgeous and had nothing to be ashamed of).

She also said that doing these things gave her a lot more empathy & understanding of what a patient goes through. And made her a better nurse.

sleepwalker, MSN, NP · Feb 1, 2022

Hey Griswald! Where do you think you're going to put a [enema] that big?

Bend over and I'll show you!

justanursedaily · Jun 25, 2022

Hey, I recommend asking a close friend if you could give them an enema or even a fellow nursing student.

My friend was constipated once for a week and I offered to practice giving him an enema. It went very well and it was pretty nice in the end. Maybe even ask your boyfriend if you could give him one. Might get kinky and ya might even like it!

feelix, RN · Jun 25, 2022

On 1/31/2022 at 3:04 PM, Steven Peterson said:

My ex is a nurse who trained in Sri Lanka. She'd told me that, in her class, students had to take turns being the mannequin for various demos, practice, and clinicals.

Apparently she drew the short straw on enema day because she had to have about 3 different enemas in front of the class. She also had to practice & demo with a lab partner in a semi-open lab environment. The unit was about a week long. I guess they do a lot more with enemas in Indian medicine than we do. I was glad when that week was over (let's just say she wasn't the only manniquin. It was a real {brown} eye opener so to speak. ?

I can't even imagine it in front of your own class though. She said it did cure her of embarrasment & body shame (believe me, she is Indian/Asian, gorgeous and had nothing to be ashamed of).

She also said that doing these things gave her a lot more empathy & understanding of what a patient goes through. And made her a better nurse.

And after the breakup you may get an additional opportunity to demo in personal injury court, how you ended up perforating your ex’s bowel.

londonflo · Jul 8, 2022

Frankly, I don't know why a faculty member would want to have a student do a return demonstration of a volume enema. Are the students going to work at a nursing home by themselves? With regard to home enemas the usual is a Fleets. Let's spend the educational time on something worthwhile.