So the first night some fairly amazing things were said. To start off they had everyone come up and introduce themselves and tell a little personal info.
In describing what phlebotomy is like, the teacher told us that it has some really cool perks. One of these times is getting to tell the patient the results of a positive pregnancy test. "Sometimes the patient is excited." Did you like the qualifier there? I sure did.
One girl got up and stated "I hate needles and blood. Time to get over my fears."
Another guy described that he was going into radiological sciences. The teacher asked if he had any kids and when he said no she said "that's probably a good thing you have no kids if you're going into radiology." She just meant that there are some serious time constraints, but it came out waaaayyyy different.
One lady, I kid you not, said this line out of the blue as she was giving her intro, "So my girlfriend called me up and asked if I wanted to take this phlebotomy class. And I asked myself, do I take this class and better myself or stay in county jail?" Apparently phlebotomy was the lesser of two evils.
Another woman was interesting (sorry, not funny) and admitted that she liked reading medical journals in her spare time and wanted to become a cardiovascular surgeon. Of course this gal also stopped showing up so maybe it wasn't worth it?
Lastly there was the teacher herself who was just kind of funny cuz she was a little ditsy. Her funniest story was talking about the crap patients make licensed nurses deal with, and how during a particularly unpleasant hospital stay she even made life hard for nurse too. The nurse had asked her to collect a urine sample but hadn't been back to collect it. Her "need assistance" light had been on for just a bit too long and she was really frustrated, so much so that when the nurse finally came back she chucked her collection at the attendee getting it all over.
Was almost as funny as when she described another story describing how phlebotomists are not responsible for cleaning up after patients. Apparently another patient had been waiting on a nurse just a little too long to use the restroom, and when the teacher went in randomly to draw this patient's blood she found the patient had taken a dump on the floor. She promptly turned on heel and let the nurses at the station know that the patient needed them.
"Why?"
"Because the patient has a problem."
"What type of problem?"
"They went to the bathroom on the floor."
"Then clean it up!"
"That's not my job!"
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Intro- About the Headmaster
Now phlebot stories are going here!
Ok, so after sharing some of the things I've heard in my phlebotomy class, Britt thinks I should blog about my experiences in this class. She laughed pretty good so hopefully you enjoy it too.
For starters, there is the man who oversees the program. He's an interesting guy and has a funny story about his own induction into phlebotomy.
At first Brian was phobic about needles and blood. He would try his hardest to avoid them and would literally pass out at the sight of a needle. Then after a friend asked him if he wanted to come train to be a phlebotomist he decided it was time to conquer that fear. So his friend put him through a little exposure therapy.
Every day this friend would tie him down to a chair using motorcycle straps and come into the room carrying a needle. Each day they'd see how close they could get to Brian before he'd pass out. Finally after about 10 days the friend was able to wave the needle around in his face, and just a few days after that he was able to poke other people with a needle of his own and start drawing blood.
But things didn't go so smoothly at first. Once at the hospital Friend waves Brian over saying he's got one over here for him. Brian enters the room and Friend... leaves. The 97 year old woman that he is left alone with then strips down giving him an image he never will forget and he proceeds to awkwardly draw her blood.
While doing this he kept noting that the blood wasn't coming out very quickly, and only after filling a few viles with blood realizes that on the underside of her arm the blood has been pooling underneath the skin due to a bad stick, leaving her a "baseball-sized hematoma" (fluid-filled sac). Frantically he waves Friend over and they disperse it as best they can.
Later the next day the woman comes back and has a bruise starting at her wrist going up her arm, around the back of her shoulder and coming down her chest from all the blood that seeped out underneath the skin. He recalls her complaining "You s.o.b.'s almost killed me!"
Apparently training and drawing standards were quite a bit lower 20-30 years ago.
Ok, so after sharing some of the things I've heard in my phlebotomy class, Britt thinks I should blog about my experiences in this class. She laughed pretty good so hopefully you enjoy it too.
For starters, there is the man who oversees the program. He's an interesting guy and has a funny story about his own induction into phlebotomy.
At first Brian was phobic about needles and blood. He would try his hardest to avoid them and would literally pass out at the sight of a needle. Then after a friend asked him if he wanted to come train to be a phlebotomist he decided it was time to conquer that fear. So his friend put him through a little exposure therapy.
Every day this friend would tie him down to a chair using motorcycle straps and come into the room carrying a needle. Each day they'd see how close they could get to Brian before he'd pass out. Finally after about 10 days the friend was able to wave the needle around in his face, and just a few days after that he was able to poke other people with a needle of his own and start drawing blood.
But things didn't go so smoothly at first. Once at the hospital Friend waves Brian over saying he's got one over here for him. Brian enters the room and Friend... leaves. The 97 year old woman that he is left alone with then strips down giving him an image he never will forget and he proceeds to awkwardly draw her blood.
While doing this he kept noting that the blood wasn't coming out very quickly, and only after filling a few viles with blood realizes that on the underside of her arm the blood has been pooling underneath the skin due to a bad stick, leaving her a "baseball-sized hematoma" (fluid-filled sac). Frantically he waves Friend over and they disperse it as best they can.
Later the next day the woman comes back and has a bruise starting at her wrist going up her arm, around the back of her shoulder and coming down her chest from all the blood that seeped out underneath the skin. He recalls her complaining "You s.o.b.'s almost killed me!"
Apparently training and drawing standards were quite a bit lower 20-30 years ago.
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