Ontopic Health Thread: post your AIDS, diseases and infekshunz here.

@Ledboots I just had a phlebotomist who missed my vein and was getting ready to go stick me again. I was nonplussed. I asked her would you like a consultation with another phlebotomist? Possibly we could have someone else try and find a vein? I'm not happy with people who aren't good at their job of poking holes in me. I seem to have offended her but I really don't care because it's my body. Have you ever witnessed this?

most (outpt) places have rules about how many sticks each phlebotomist gets, usually 2, but also a good phlebotomist will usually know what went wrong the first time and the likelihood it'll happen again. even the best of us miss sometimes.

I was also never a dick about someone asking for someone else to try if I'd missed, or handing it off to someone else myself if I felt like round 2 from me would end similarly.

but, some phlebotomists have a really fragile ego and inflated sense of self, so they'd have a shit fit if a pt tried to guide them in any way (asking for butterfly, saying where they usually get stuck, etc). the way i sways viewed it is, yeah, I successfully stick a lot of people, but I haven't necessarily successfully stuck YOU a lot, so as long as I am able to comply with your request, I'm gonna, and if I can't, I'll let you know I can't and why and give you the option of either letting me try what I'm comfortable with after explicitly stating what that is, or having someone else look


e.g. "I don't feel a vein there and I don't want to stick you there just to say I tried, but I do feel a good one over here, would it be ok with you if I gave that a try? or I can have Becky take a peek at your preferred spot and see if she can feel something I'm missing?"
 
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most (outpt) places have rules about how many sticks each phlebotomist gets, usually 2, but also a good phlebotomist will usually know what went wrong the first time and the likelihood it'll happen again. even the best of us miss sometimes.

I was also never a dick about someone asking for someone else to try if I'd missed, or handing it off to someone else myself if I felt like round 2 from me would end similarly.

but, some phlebotomists have a really fragile ego and inflated sense of self, so they'd have a shit fit if a pt tried to guide them in any way (asking for butterfly, saying where they usually get stuck, etc). the way i sways viewed it is, yeah, I successfully stick a lot of people, but I haven't necessarily successfully stuck YOU a lot, so as long as I am able to comply with your request, I'm gonna, and if I can't, I'll let you know I can't and why and give you the option of either letting me try what I'm comfortable with after explicitly stating what that is, or having someone else look


e.g. "I don't feel a vein there and I don't want to stick you there just to say I tried, but I do feel a good one over here, would it be ok with you if I gave that a try? or I can have Becky take a peek at your preferred spot and see if she can feel something I'm missing?"
You can stick me anytime you like I really like your attitude about how you do these things. PS not with a lawn dart.
 
You can stick me anytime you like I really like your attitude about how you do these things. PS not with a lawn dart.
I did phlebotomy for 10+ years as my primary job, and for a good 5 of those years stuck 100+ people a day. some patients truly are dicks, but the bulk of them are scared or nervous or sick or uncomfortable. it's not going to help anybody for me to take that personally.

when I was younger, I'd joke online about using "the big" needle on people that were jerks, but in all honesty I 100% selected size by vein, not by dickishness, I was just immature enough back then to act otherwise online to sound tuff. that said, I did usually go with the largest of the available sizes that I thought would work (21 gauge), but there are legitimate reasons for that (including less likely for sample to hemolyze or clot en route requiring a redraw, and the tubes filled faster meaning less time with a needle in your arm), and the only other size we had was only one size down (23 gauge - they go in odd sizes, and 25 gauge and smaller is almost guaranteed to hemolyze) and, as someone who has both taken my own blood and let countless boobs train on me, felt about the same as long as the wielder didn't go fishing (which is not the same as a single repositioning, but rather resembles a technique not dissimilar to liposuction)


edit: NOOBS not boobs but I'm leaving it.
 
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@Ledboots I just had a phlebotomist who missed my vein and was getting ready to go stick me again. I was nonplussed. I asked her would you like a consultation with another phlebotomist? Possibly we could have someone else try and find a vein? I'm not happy with people who aren't good at their job of poking holes in me. I seem to have offended her but I really don't care because it's my body. Have you ever witnessed this?
Twice is acceptable to try for a vein,but not if the patient is unhappy. And no fishing around! 😱
 
We are a sick bunch o cellsacks if one person working in one clinic (lab whatever) is drawing blood from a person every 6 minutes (based on a 10 hr day).

Holy moley
 
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We are a sick bunch o cellsacks if one person working in one clinic (lab whatever) is drawing blood from a person every 6 minutes (based on a 10 hr day).

Holy moley
it was rough times. 2 of us working, and we had to register, order, draw, process, and accession everything ourselves. eventually we found it was easiest/quickest for her to register/order and me to draw and start the processing, and then if we managed to get a lull we'd go do the rest. unless it was a really hard stick, there's no way I'm spending 6 minutes on the draw.

but yeah I did spend a number of years with illegally unpaid lunch breaks and with nightly stress nightmares about the workload.
 
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I guess the whole needle/blood draw thing doesn't bother me as much as most. Had some that were awesome at it, some not so much. I don't mind if they need another shot at it. I doubt any of us have performed our jobs absolutely flawlessly every single time we did them and never goofed anything up. I don't mind if a rookie trains on me. Couple times I was even the one calming them down. "Take a breath, relax, I don't bite. Now try it again".

I'm also the one that sat up and watched the doc yank out my ingrown toenails twice. He did good numbing it up, the rest don't bother me.
 
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I guess the whole needle/blood draw thing doesn't bother me as much as most. Had some that were awesome at it, some not so much. I don't mind if they need another shot at it. I doubt any of us have performed our jobs absolutely flawlessly every single time we did them and never goofed anything up. I don't mind if a rookie trains on me. Couple times I was even the one calming them down. "Take a breath, relax, I don't bite. Now try it again".

I'm also the one that sat up and watched the doc yank out my ingrown toenails twice. He did good numbing it up, the rest don't bother me.
I bet you watch sex change operation porn When I saw the Butthole Surfers twice in the 1980s they had a sex change operation film going on behind the stage.
 
it was rough times. 2 of us working, and we had to register, order, draw, process, and accession everything ourselves. eventually we found it was easiest/quickest for her to register/order and me to draw and start the processing, and then if we managed to get a lull we'd go do the rest. unless it was a really hard stick, there's no way I'm spending 6 minutes on the draw.

but yeah I did spend a number of years with illegally unpaid lunch breaks and with nightly stress nightmares about the workload.
Sigh