come on, show me your vein... pleeeeeeeease?

It's official.

I now have an 80% success rate for taking blood.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (<-- Scream of joy)

So taking blood is essential skill numero uno as a junior doctor. Sure, 50-year-old qualified specialist consultants suck at taking blood because they haven't been asked to for yonks. But if you're a junior doctor/recent med school graduate on night duty alone? Well, that's kind of what you get paid for, you know?

Hands-on skills have never been my strong point. I always joke that the only things my hands were good at were writing and typing. Other than that, they're pretty damn useless. And it never worried me - I put it down to fact that my mum never let me learn an instrument or have any hands-on/crafty hobbies growing up which would develop the areas of my brain used for fine motor skills. But at the same time I had never planned on having a career requiring any degree of fine motor skills.

Even when I got into med school I told myself that doctors have a reputation for being pretty crap at taking blood so I wouldn't have to worry about it much -- isn't that why hospitals have dedicated people otherwise known as phlebotomists trained to do just that, all day every day?

But from being on the wards this year I've realised (initially to my dismay) that learning to take blood off patients, and take blood well, is not only unavoidable but essential.

So now the dilemma -- how the heck do I stop sucking at taking blood?

Throughout year we've had chances to take blood off patients on the ward, but they've been few and far between. And even when the chance arises, you have to then fight it out amongst classmates in your group to see who gets to do it. And because the opportunities are so sporadic you can't really improve; at least, not by doing it once every... at best, three months!

Some med students worry about it excessively even though they're actually pretty good. Others just seem to breeze in and breeze out, successful every time without a care in the world. Me? I'm not one to worry about stuff like that cos I know what my strengths are and vice versa, but that doesn't change the fact that I just plain suck -- and particularly sucking at using Vacutainers, much preferring the syringe or even the much more expensive butterflies (not a good habit at all!) both of which has instant flashback so you can SEE whether you're in the vein or not, instead of leaving it to FEEL as is the case with Vacutainers.

VS


So one of the upsides of my summer research project/study is that the patients we recruit have to come in for three appointments during a four month period, each time needing a blood test. The first round of appointments began yesterday when I saw seven patients. Now I've been telling myself that this would be a prime opportunity to improve my oh-so-sucky blood drawing skills, and what's more, to challenge myself to get out of the habit of using syringes and butterflies.

Taking blood from the first couple of patients yesterday didn't go too well: the first lady I had one attempt but wimped out and sent her down to the hospital phlebotomists, and the second was pretty obese thus difficult to see/feel any veins in her arms so I didn't even try. But then I got the next one with the first attempt; and then the next; and then all the rest for the day!

It's amazing that after just ONE DAY of taking blood from patients throughout the day, I went from having no faith in my abilities whatsoever and having an emotional allergy to Vacutainers, to just sliding the needle in and sliding it out WITH actual blood in the actual tube! Not to mention I went from a (what must have been!) less than 20% success rate to 70%. And today (Day 2) I saw 11 patients in total (half an hour appointments each!) and my success rate improve another 10%! But the best part of it all has been that I now really enjoy taking blood - it's incredibly fun once you get the hang of it, and very satisfying. Strange, I know, but true nonetheless.

I definitely think doing them one after another in a given day helps so much; you really can't improve at something if you're only doing it once every few months! It's just such a relief to have this checked off my "achieve-before-graduation" to-do list, which will make life for Future Dr Anna much easier when she's on-call alone on the ward at midnight.

You're welcome Future Anna!