Legitimate IM Sites

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We have a nurse at work who gives IM shots in the Latissimus Dorsi (kidney area). I was not taught in school, nor can find any reference, that this is an acceptable site. The patients complain that it hurts.

Has anyone else ever seen this?

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

Ouch, I looked that up too. Found nothing that states that it is a proper injection site.

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Specializes in Acute Care Cardiac, Education, Prof Practice.

I am not sure. I am such a sucker for the vastus lateralis.

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Specializes in Psychiatric.

I know of nothing stating that this is a proper site for IM injection.

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The only proper IM sites we learned were mid-deltoid three finger breadths below the acromion process, dorsogluteal with landmarks being head of tochanter and posterior iliac spine with an imaginary line drawn between the two with injection given above and lateral to the line in the gluteus medius muscle, ventrogluteal involving gluteus medius and minimus muscles. In addition, the vastus lateralis and rectus femoris muscles may also be utilized as IM injection sites.

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

And I'm sorry, but if a nurse came at me with a needle and said "can you lean over, I'm gonna give you a shot in your back", I'd be out of my bed and AMA in a blink of an eye...

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sometimes bcg vaccines or even vita k can be pushed through this site, but it can be very dangerous because if you hit a wrong vein or artery it could lead to paralisys.

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Specializes in neuro, ICU/CCU, tropical medicine.
sometimes bcg vaccines or even vita k can be pushed through this site, but it can be very dangerous because if you hit a wrong vein or artery it could lead to paralisys.

BCG is given intradermally - usually over the right deltoid, but I've been told that it is given over the buttock in some countries.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00041047.htm

Inadvertent subcutaneous injection of BCG can cause an abscess.

The second time I had malaria I ended up in a hospital in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). A doc gave me a shot of quinine in my left sciatic nerve.

20 years later I can still feel it.

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