Teaching successful medication administration today: more than just knowing your 'rights'

Medication administration is an important skill taught in undergraduate nursing programs. Student learning for this activity includes not only how to prepare and administer medications, but also includes interventions such as patient and family teaching. Students also are taught a series of 'rights' in order to prevent medication errors. There are many factors, both personal and system related, which contribute to medication errors in the health care environment. The purpose of this article is to provide strategies for teaching students medication administration that encompass the multiple factors involved to ensure safe practice. This opinion paper is based on the authors' considerable years of teaching experience (35 years clinical setting and classroom teaching with senior students in final year of baccalaureate program for 1st author and 16 years total for co-author). Recommendations put forth by the authors are: a) leveling students' clinical experiences in administering medications to include understanding of system factors, b) structured scenarios and purposeful linking of theory to clinical courses to advance students' knowledge and skills related to medication administration as they progress through the program, 3) revisiting math skills.