phlebotomy 101..  

by admin on Mar.19, 2010, 754 words in post | 8 Comments
Filed under crazy, happenings, phlebotomy, ramblings, work

I know it’s already a cliche, but time really does go by so fast. Before I even realized it, march 12 had already passed by which basically translates to one thing: I have successfully survived my first agonizing month as a registered medical technologist-slash-phlebotomist..  CONG-RA-TU-LA-TIONS!!! And I seriously tell you, that past month was insane. It was, in fact, pure chaos which probably was due to  the roller coaster ride of emotions I’ve felt during those times.

So to give you all a hint of what I’ve gotten myself into the previous month, here’s a list of basic facts, important rules and random tidbits that I’ve learned from my experiences these past few days:

1.) Never assume that the person lying on the bed, (looking stressed, sickly, and sleeping blissfully) is the patient.. I was once nearly a victim of this stupid mistake. >.< I saw someone sleeping on the bed, so I woke him up and then asked him to state the name of the patient. Still sleepy, he told me the correct name. At that point everything looks okay. Luckily  before I proceeded, I tried to checked his patient wrist band but to my horror I couldn’t find any. Then I woke him up again and asked if he was indeed the patient. Turned out he was the brother and that the real patient was on the CT Scan department for his procedure. Great huh?  If I wasn’t careful enough I would have earned myself an Incident Report for wrong patient identification which is a major mistake tantamount to being fired. Lucky for me, my brain cells were working perfectly back then so I saved myself the trouble of being canned.

2.) Out patient veins and in patient veins are considerably different from each other.. Out patient veins are basically bigger and easier to find compared to that of the in patients. “Extra challenge veins” can generally be found in the ICU, neurocritical unit, cancer units. When I say extra challenge, I mean super mega difficult to extract veins that will literally make you cry because you won’t be able to extract blood in a single try . Either because the veins are way too thin and collapsible such as in the case of the cancer patients or  maybe because of edema (pamamanas) such as those of the ICU & neurocritical care patients  So my seniors told me, when in doubt, use your “less popular” extraction sites.  No need to elaborate on that one.

3.) Always bring a bag of patience with you.. Some people will really get to your nerves so an extra bag of happy thoughts  together with patience will surely go a long way.

4.) Always expect the unexpected.. You’ll never know when a certain agitated patient will suddenly appear in front of you, and start yelling out of the blue about something that supposedly irritate her    You, having no knowledge about the stated reason, will be left standing there looking red due to the humiliation the shouting have caused Believe me when I say I know how it feels to be in this tricky situation. It was a good thing I kept my cool so I calmly and politely told her to go talk to my superiors because I really have no clue as to what her problem is all about. In the end, she came back to apologize to me and told me that she was just irritated with a certain colleague of mine. Shoot!!

So there, those were just some of the crazy things I’ve learned from my suicidal first month of being a phlebotomist. I would have put a longer list but then I realized that my post has gotten a little longer than it should be. So that’s it for now because I still owe a lot of you a visit .