Shots (not the inebriating kind)

In our nursing skills lab Monday it was shot day, (not the day when we all kick back and reminisce about our youth over a couple of shot glasses.) The result of this? We were all hyperventilating and pre-hypertensive watching our instructor brandish the inch and a half needle like it was a spear. We all put on our brave faces, acting like it didn't matter to get punctured but it showed when she asked for a volunteer. Suddenly the tiled floor became much more interesting and all eye-contact was abandoned. When one of us poor suckers submitted ourselves to be the dummy, she stepped forward as a soldier to battle while we all looked at her in awe. The most interesting part was the deltoid shot. Our instructor jammed that needle in with such gusto I was sure that it would never be removed from her arm and the dummy would forever been stricken with the disability of dreaded "permanent-needle-in-the-arm". As we partnered off and I looked at my partner nervously, hoping she had practiced proper sterile technique on the solution prepared, I couldn't help but chuckle to think of what an anesthetist's school was like and what they had to practice. Can you imagine giving a shot in the femoral vein...which is located RIGHT next to the groin? I guess that's how friends are made in any health care profession. Therefore, I will always look back on Jessica Gibbs, my friend, who gave me a shaky but powerful shot right in my backside.