Reflective Essay on Subcutaneous Injection as Clinical Teaching

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Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Reflective essay
Topic- : subcutaneous injection as my clinical teaching
In this self refelction essay I will use the gibb’s reflective cycle to describe my experiences
and how the experience have affected me and have helped me to learn to enhance my
professional practice and how the experience had been useful in my clinical teaching practice.
Description
I was assigned to demonstrated clinical teaching activity before my peers about the
correct procedure for the application of subcutaneous injection in a patient within a clinical
setting. It has to be mentoned that clinical teaching was being performed within a real life
clinical setting with a real patient (Mayhall, 2012). A subcuranous injection is normally used
for administering anticoagulants like heparin or insulin. Since I was demonstrating my
clinical teaching skills, I made it sure to mention the types of medications that are notrmally
administered subcutaneously. After that the patient was brought to the room where I have
arranged all the equipments required for the administration of the subcutaneous medicine. I
greeted the patient cordially and informed him about the medicine that has to be administered
(Cassileth, Zupkis, Sutton-Smith & March, 2012). I provided enough scope for my peers to
get a view of the entire procedure. One of them was also making a video recording for the
future evaluation. The patient had an abdominal surgery and thus chose her arm for the
administration of the injection. I chose an appropriate needle for the administration of insulin.
I performed hand hygiene techniques before the administration of the medicine. The upper
hand was chosen as the site of injection . appropriate size of needle was chosen or the
application of medicine. I made it sure observe the previous sites of the injecton. Rotation of

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
the injection site is necessary to prevent scarring. Howver, I held the syringe uprighy and
pulled the plunger down adjusting the dosage of the medicine. I swabbed the injection site
with the help of an alcohol pad. The I slowly injected the medicine in to the skin at an angle
of 45 degree. The plunger is pushed all the way dwn and was held for about 10 seconds. I
released the pinched skin and removed the needle. I finally discarded the injection in a
puncture resistant discard can.
Feelings
Although I have perofmed this procedure for a number of times , but I still felt nevous
while carrying out the procedure, as my demonstraton skills and the teaching techniques
would be evaluated for clinical teaching process and I would also feel a bit embrarrased if
any error occurs in front of my peers. Furthermore subcutaneous medicine administration is
not amechanistic task and has to be done in strict compliance with the prescription and
nursing guidelines. I have always learnt that the administration of an injection skilfully
enables the patient to experience less pain and also prevents unnecessary complications.
SC injection involves deposition of the medicines in to the loose connective tissue
under the epidermis. The rationale for the application of subcutaneous medicines is that these
tissues does not have a rich supply of blood vessels and thus the medicines are absorbed
slowly. Before the application of the injections, some precautions should be taken care off.
The preexixting condition of the patient sould be assessed for preventing the
contraindications, patient prescription charts should be checked for assessing the correct
route, dosage (Jin etc al., 2012).