This past week, Lisa and I spent with school health. It was our first week with school health. I had mixed feelings about starting school health: excited for something new, but sad to be done with public health.
We started with school health at a great point; they were ready to begin flu shots to students in the schools. The flu shots are given in two different ways: nasal and with a Biojector, which is a gun that uses CO2 pressure to “shoot” the vaccine into the muscle.
The beginning of the week consisted of administering flu shots to Head Start students, ages 3 to 5. We did get some pre-Head Start students who were 2 years old. The challenge with this age group was administering the flu vaccine while they are moving around and crying. We had a person hold the child while we held the head for the nasal or the arm for the Biojector. The nasal route had to be done quickly because they seemed to move their head around after the first mist. With the Biojector, it seemed that fear was most of the problem. For this, Lisa and I did a lot of praising after the injection.
On Thursday, Olivia and Briana joined us with the flu clinic at Sacaton Elementary School. We were able to give flu shots to 200 students. The whole process went smoothly with little crying and/or moving around by the students. With this group, we were able to explain to them what was happening and why they needed to sit still.
Lisa and I will continue to administer flu shots this coming week. By the end, we will be able to do it in our sleep!
This week also was filled with our group presentation on dental health. We were all happy that it went very smoothly. Preliminary results show an increase in the average pre/post test scores of 20%!! We were given the opportunity to present to another third grade class. This will take place this Friday. We are hoping that it will go just as well.
We started with school health at a great point; they were ready to begin flu shots to students in the schools. The flu shots are given in two different ways: nasal and with a Biojector, which is a gun that uses CO2 pressure to “shoot” the vaccine into the muscle.
The beginning of the week consisted of administering flu shots to Head Start students, ages 3 to 5. We did get some pre-Head Start students who were 2 years old. The challenge with this age group was administering the flu vaccine while they are moving around and crying. We had a person hold the child while we held the head for the nasal or the arm for the Biojector. The nasal route had to be done quickly because they seemed to move their head around after the first mist. With the Biojector, it seemed that fear was most of the problem. For this, Lisa and I did a lot of praising after the injection.
On Thursday, Olivia and Briana joined us with the flu clinic at Sacaton Elementary School. We were able to give flu shots to 200 students. The whole process went smoothly with little crying and/or moving around by the students. With this group, we were able to explain to them what was happening and why they needed to sit still.
Lisa and I will continue to administer flu shots this coming week. By the end, we will be able to do it in our sleep!
This week also was filled with our group presentation on dental health. We were all happy that it went very smoothly. Preliminary results show an increase in the average pre/post test scores of 20%!! We were given the opportunity to present to another third grade class. This will take place this Friday. We are hoping that it will go just as well.
How did the kids handle the bioinjector? We have a few in our clinic and it seems like the nurses opt NOT use the bioinjector unless children have an intense fear of the actual needle. It seems like the few children I've seen with the bioinjector have even MORE discomfort with the injection than the kids receiving their injections with a regular syringe. Albiet, six injections at one encounter are gonna hurt no matter what method of injection you use...
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