Needles!!

[allieveronica]

We just learned about landmarking and practiced sticking needles into grapefruit and oranges. My teacher mentioned that at some point in our career, we will give an immunization and accidentally hit the persons bone. That thought scares me!! I'm gonna be so nervous doing an actual immunization for the first time, lol. Have any of you had the chance to give a shot yet?

[Kuriin, BSN, RN]

Ya. I've done a few subcuts which are not as big of a deal as intradermal or intramuscular. I think they're trying to scare ya, though. Our pharmacology teacher basically said, "About 3 of you in this class will give a med error in your life and kill your patient because of it." essentially scaring the crap out of us so we don't do them. Of course, he could be right, too...

[allieveronica]

Ya. I've done a few subcuts which are not as big of a deal as intradermal or intramuscular. I think they're trying to scare ya though. Our pharmacology teacher basically said, "About 3 of you in this class will give a med error in your life and kill your patient because of it." essentially scaring the crap out of us so we don't do them. Of course, he could be right, too...[/quote']

Maybe it's a good thing that they try to scare you a little bit so you don't make the error, like you said. I'll try not to worry! We only just started learning about this and we haven't had much practice. I will feel better once I actually do it a few times I'm sure. :)

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

We practiced on inject-able manikin arms and lower bodies.

My school provides a immunization clinic several times per year for low income residents. They utilize students in their peds clinicals to administer the shots. My ABSN class had the opportunity to give immunizations during the summer immunization clinic because there were no traditional nursing students on campus during the summer. Because of the demand they are adding an extra clinic day in December just for the ABSN students since we have some experience, so 10 people in our class have an opportunity to participate again to count towards required 9 hrs. of community service clinical hours in our Med/Surg I class. During the Spring semester we have the Maternity/ Peds class, so I will participate a third time. By the time I graduate in August I will be very proficient at IM and SQ injections.

One of my classmates hit bone on a very skinny child, painful for the child. She just tried again in a different spot.

There were a few in my group that were apprehensive about giving shots. By the end of the day they were volunteering to give more shots.

[Aurora77]

I hit bone once on skinny little old lady. I can't remember now what I was giving, but it was an IM in the deltoid. She never even flinched. I was a new grad and terrified I'd seriously messed up but everything was OK. It was such an odd feeling, but the patient was fine.

[ShelbyaStar]

I'm pretty sure someone hit the bone on me when I was a kid and I was getting allergy shots monthly. It is shudder inducing (kind of like nails on a chalkboard) but ultimately harmless and not that bad. Shots kinda stink either way, you're not making it that much MORE unpleasant by hitting bone...

Funny story, I used to work on a horse breeding farm and gave penicillin shots pretty regularly for various reasons and it was stressed that penicillin can cause seizures or kill if you get it in a vein, and I should always draw back to check for blood before injecting. Pretty much the one time I didn't, I injected, drew out the needle and the mare was bleeding, fairly significantly.

I about had a heart attack and stared at her in horror, sure she was about to drop dead. She didn't. I must've nicked a blood vessel on the way in or out without actually injecting into one. You can bet I was really careful to draw back first after that though!

[ruralnurse84]

I hit bone once on skinny little old lady. I can't remember now what I was giving, but it was an IM in the deltoid. She never even flinched. I was a new grad and terrified I'd seriously messed up but everything was OK. It was such an odd feeling, but the patient was fine.

I pretty much did this the other day at a flu shot clinic. It wasn't on an old lady, but it was on a tiny gal who I'm pretty sure was a nurse. She didn't say a thing and the vaccine was injected. For some reason they gave us some pretty long needles to do these vaccinations, which was fine on most of the people coming in, but anyone with skinny arms was kind of a problem. It was a great learning opportunity though.