experience –
Anxiety about blood drawsRating: (votes: 0) Fear and confidence. Blood draws and IVs are all about fear and confidence; on both the part of the patient and the phlebotomist. The anatomy is easy enough to understand, and the actual skill is replicable with practice. Practice is the key with these. As far as avoiding needle sticks. Be sure you approach the situation with confidence every time. Whether you're terrible at phlebotomy, like I was for a while, or skilled, always appear confident. Sun Tzu said: "If you are weak, appear strong." Gauge your patients fear of being stuck and whether or not they might jump up or jerk. And by this I don't mean ask "are you afraid of needles?" Some people have no fear of needles. I always use good skin traction about 4-5 inches away from where I'm going to introduce the needle so if they jerk I can move my second hand away.Once you've collected your samples, make sure you use a bulky amount of gauze to place on top of the needle and insertion site. Press firmly down on the gauze and butterfly wings with your second hand. At the same time with your dominant hand release the tourniquet then pull the butterfly tubing down away from the patient to initiate the needle safety lock function. Basically it pulls the needle out of the patient and into a hard plastic housing in one motion. You'll be fine. Really. Just don't drink too much coffee beforehand cuz then you'll be nervous and bouncing on caffeine and YOU'LL be the one shaking. |
New
Tags
Like
|