Practice intramuscular injection students on each other, Australia

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Practice intramuscular injection with nurse students on each other is standard way how to teach/learn intramuscular injection in Europe - UK/Germany/Etc. Of course only with students agreement.

Please help me if you have experience with this method in Australia by your statement - as a teacher or student. Or if there is anything which says this practice is forbidden in Australia.

It is very important to know for me, my girlfriend taught (we are both from Europe) by this method and now is facing official complaint from her supervisor - who said it was wrong to do it, unprofessional, against Nurse's Code of Professional Conduct etc., many terrible words, but not explain a word why, just said so. Thank you in advance for any genuine information.

So I guess you are horrified to give IM to patients because there are so many risks and potential legal implications, right? Do you actually know what intramuscular injection is? Do you know that everybody (or at least 99,9 % of Australians) got IM at least once but usually many more times and guess what? We are still living. It is not drilling into your brain. But yes, you can live your dream in the world with no invasive procedures.

Maybe my training was different to yours but there were 30 in a class and there is no way a lecture would have the time to supervise every student administer an IM injection or any other procedure. When were training to draw blood we trained on plastic dummies and then we had one on one supervision by a lecture on that dummy before we could take blood on a human. This process took 3 weeks to clear everyone.

We trained on dummies for the IM injections and it was amazing the amount of times the site of the injection was incorrect and the guage of needle was incorrect. This was after paper theory and DVD demonstation.

So thank you for your combative response. I'm sure you would be first to shout from the roof tops if there was an adverse event from an IM or other invasive procedure done by and person whose only training was that they were able to inject a fellow student unsupervised.

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Please READ the posts above if you want judge my opinion about teaching IM, thank you. Beacause you would know that I have nothing against paper theory, DVDs, dummies, oranges or whatever, nobody is speaking about students doing IM each other without training and without supervision etc. Nonsenses like that there is no way a lecturer would have the time to supervise every student to do IM but he has time to supervise every student one by one on dummy are not good arguments, sorry.

Anyway thank you for sharing your experience in this second post - that is what I was asking for. I am sure the way you have learned is good and would be glad if all students have these circumstances.

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Specializes in Cath lab, acute, community.

Whilst at university, I asked why we didn't practice on each other. The reason given was the risk of transmission of blood borne viruses by poor practice, and also insurance. Insurance wise - if something went wrong, the university could be sued.

We practised on a sponge that was COMPLETELY not like human skin in any way, shape or form.

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Thank you for your experience and for asking in advance. Yes, as I wrote before:

schools/universities leave this method because of liability reasons. The trend is that for schools/universities/teachers is simply easier to let students prick oranges, not IM to patients or even each other. This way it is safe. And students? They will learn later on patients without supervision or maybe with some help, who cares, they can always pay to insurance companies to protect them if some patient get injured, that is how the business works.
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I have done all my training in Australia. I started at TAFE doing my Diploma and am now at Uni doing my Degree. At neither place did we practise on each other in regards to injections.

I for one would certainly not be keen for someone to practice on me. A lot of the students have no idea what they are doing and many did not end up continuing or passing. I also would not have been comfortable injecting someone just for the practice. I don't think that unnecessary puncturing of the skin and destruction of cells is something to be taken lightly. Also the equipment that we practise with has more often than not passed its expiry date.

When we did inject actual patients we had an experienced nurse right beside us and most people watched this nurse perform the procedure first before trying it themselves. Also the patient always has the option to refuse or to ask for someone else if they are not comfortable.

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I for one would certainly not be keen for someone to practice on me. A lot of the students have no idea what they are doing and many did not end up continuing or passing. I also would not have been comfortable injecting someone just for the practice. I don't think that unnecessary puncturing of the skin and destruction of cells is something to be taken lightly. Also the equipment that we practise with has more often than not passed its expiry date.

When we did inject actual patients we had an experienced nurse right beside us and most people watched this nurse perform the procedure first before trying it themselves. Also the patient always has the option to refuse or to ask for someone else if they are not comfortable.

Yes, voluntarism (option to refuse) is important and serious thing with this kind of practice. Especially if you are talking about conditions with expired equipment, which was definitely not in this case - everything was double checked, under supervision of two (or three) experienced nurses etc. Thank you very much for sharing your experience.

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Specializes in 1 PACU,11 ICU, 9 ER.

Mumlauf

What are you hoping to gain from this thread.. I am a bit lost.

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Main goal was to find somebody who have experience with students practice intramuscular injection on each other in Australia (the reason is more explained in my first few posts). I am glad for any sharing personal experience of nurse or student with teaching/learning/practice IM and so this thread is also about how the practice of intramuscular injection looks like in Australia.

It is also about sharing experience that some students who were going to finish in few days nurse studies at TAFE were afraid (not confident or even scared) to give IM to patients because for some of them all their experience was pricking oranges.

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I know you are specifically looking for Australian practices but I completed my degree in New Zealand in 2001 and we practiced IMIs on each other. We used sterile water for injection and teeny 26g needles. It was quite intimidating initially as we didn't want to hurt each other but as our clinical tutors advised, patients are real people too. Of course this was all done in the simulated units with clinical tutors observing, it was a teaching session after all. We got the orange first but oranges lack muscle fiber. We never practiced deep IMIs. I am not sure if the students still do practice on each other. I realise it doesn't set a precedent for Australia but it's not like New Zealand is a third world education provider either.

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it helps prepare nurses for similar scenarios..

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Since this thread was started, I asked around and one client of mine was a nurse in the 1940's and they practised on each other and apparently the educator sister was in deep trouble because of that practise then.

This is the only example I have found in Australia so far.

So on the premise of the original poster then, nurses in Australia from the 1940's have been poor im administrators of IMI who lacked confidence.

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biancah thank you for sharing experience. From global view New Zealand experience is very close to what I need :-). I appreciate that.
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