Effective Use of Injection Kits in Clinical Training

Injection kits provide medical students with all the medical items, resources, and accessories needed to perform injections for various purposes, such as administering medication or anesthetics. 

Some of the medical items you may find in an injection kit include:

• Alcohol swabs
• Syringes
• Needles
• Plastic vials filled with distilled water
• Plastic or glass ampules filled with distilled water
• Medical injection pad
• Disposable latex gloves

The vials and ampoules are simulated medications with distilled water acting as placebos. Their labeling and casing appear real, but the actual liquid solution inside poses no risk to a person’s health. It is the perfect way for medical students to train in clinical settings because they do not have to worry about harming patients.

Below are five ways that injection kits can improve clinical skills and patient care outcomes. 

1) Immediate Feedback

Medical students may use injection kits on simulated patients during clinical training sessions. Simulated patients are trained to appropriately communicate and respond to medical students' words and actions. Whenever a medical student administers an injection of any kind, the simulated patient will react accordingly. 

Based on the student’s performance, the simulated patient will provide immediate feedback about the positive or negative effects of the injection. If the student makes a mistake, the simulated patient will convey the adverse effects resulting from the error. The instructor monitoring the clinical training may also weigh in on the situation and help guide the students on how to improve their performance in the future. 

Feedback is essential to a medical student's success. Over time, the input will turn medical students into professionals who make fewer mistakes and provide better patient care outcomes. 

2) Gain Experience

Administering injections requires the implementation of precise techniques and procedures to ensure no harm to the patient. Although the simulated medication in the vials and ampoules are placebos, the needles of the syringes are genuine. Students will learn to choose the correct needle sizes and insert the needles at the proper angles into the patient’s arm or other location. 

The simulated patient or instructor will correct the student if they are about to insert the needle into the skin the wrong way. If it is the student’s first time inserting a needle, the instructor may have them practice on manikins before moving on to human patients. Manikins are lifeless dummies that do not feel anything inserted into them. So, it is okay if the student makes mistakes with the injections in a dummy’s arm because it will not hurt them. 

The whole purpose is for the student to gain experience using the tools in the injection kit. If students can successfully make injections on a manikin, they can graduate onto human patients and apply the exact skills they learned. That will be the ultimate test to see if they have gained the appropriate experience in administering injections safely.  

3) Practice Communication Skills

Practicing injection techniques with simulated or actual patients gives students the chance to practice their communication skills in clinical settings too. Patients will naturally have questions and concerns about the injections, such as whether it will hurt or cause side effects. Students will practice addressing these kinds of worries by putting patients’ minds at ease. 

Learning to communicate effectively and knowledgeably is a crucial part of clinical training with injection kits. Even though the students must do the communication, the injection kits establish the basis of the conversation during a simulated treatment scenario. Thus, it develops a student’s injection administration skills and social communication skills in clinical settings. 

4) More Opportunities to Practice Technique

Medical students do not necessarily have to wait until they are in a clinical setting before they practice using their injection kits. With the combination of an injection kit and manikin, medical students can practice with their injection kits on their own time whenever they want. 

After all, the key to success at administering injections is repeatedly practicing until it is done right. Most medical students make frequent mistakes as they learn the process of filling the syringe with medicine, rubbing alcohol on the patient’s arm, and then inserting the needle at the right angle. 

By practicing on their own time, students do not have the added pressure of an instructor watching over them constantly. It gives them a chance to perfect their injection techniques so that they can impress their instructors when they return to a clinical setting.  

5) Memorize the Injection Tools Needed

The great thing about injection kits is that they provide students with everything they need to perform injections. Students won’t have to search and gather various medical items to administer injections because all the items come together in one kit. That helps teach students about the items they need to do injections so they can quickly memorize them going forward.

Then, in the future, if students ever need to perform an emergency injection without having an injection kit available to them, they will know which items to gather to do the injection. That is one more added benefit for students working with injection kits in clinical settings. 

Other Ways to Practice Injections

Newer students may feel too intimidated to use injection kits right away. One way to casually introduce them to injection techniques is to use other forms of medical simulations, such as virtual reality and manikins. 

Virtual reality does not require you to distribute physical injection kits, but it does give students the chance to practice with virtual variations of them. Perhaps some students may feel more comfortable using virtual simulations of injection kits before moving on to the real ones. 

Medical school professors and leadership must decide whether to use virtual or real injection kits. However, if a medical school cannot afford to purchase virtual reality technology for its students, a simple manikin and injection kit will work just fine for clinical training purposes.