Nursing students and new nurses.....about injection sites

Nurses Medications

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I heard something today that just flabbergasted me......when I was in school back in the days of the horse and buggy, we had to name all IM injection sites and be able to demonstrate how to administer at each site. I can give VG and glute and VL meds blindfold and asleep. Today we had a medsurg nurse float to the ER. She's relatively new, graduated about a year and a half ago, I believe. She was asking us how to find the glute sites to give an IM to a pt, because in school she had only been taught deltoids. Huh???? Let me add that she went to a very reputable nursing school and she has proven to be an excellent nurse on the floor. All pts admitted to the floors who need anything more than PO meds get IVs and injectables are given IV. My tech said that she received Toradol and Compazine in the doctor's office the other day (same doc's MA who gave my baby the flu vax I talked about here) and the MA gave both to her in the deltoids. My eyes went wide....both meds can be caustic, as well as 2 mls each. Is this what's being taught now???

Specializes in ER, progressive care.

I was taught all of the injection sites, too, and we had to test out of them...either pass/fail. I have always given IM injections in the deltoid...I have used the dorsogluteal site for IM antibiotics (better given in a larger muscle and some of them, such as Bicillin, are REALLY thick!)

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Thank you so much! .. CAN U TELL ME THE SITES OF THE INJECTIONS THAT U LEARNED I HAD A PROBLEM WITH IT ON NCLEX...

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