Things one doesn't want to hear from the nurse about to take a blood sample*

[nineveh_uk]

Person whose job is probably clinical research nurse: "I've completed the training, but as I haven't done that many yet, my colleague will need to join us to supervise. Is that OK?"

Me, in my head: AAAAARGGGGHHH!!!

Me, out loud: That's fine.

She was fine. Definitely not in my top experience of phlebotomists, because experience really does seem to count here, but adequately competent. Fortunately I have highly cooperative veins. Still, I've evidently moved a long way since when I routinely anaesthetised the site with lidocaine first.

And now I wait a month for the results, which will tell me For Science whether I have coronavirus antibodies, to which the answer seems probably not because it has been too long. Still, fingers crossed!

*Via VirusWatch. I am very disappointed that they have clearly now had their consent form PDF proofread properly and updated it to talk about blood samples rather than the first version I received by email, which talked about bleeding people.

Comments

[antisoppist]

They have got to learn somehow on someone but still. Perhaps better supervised than not.

It has been a morning for stabbing people. I got the last but one flu vaccine remaining in the village pharmacy.

[nineveh_uk]

I was definitely telling myself "she has to learn on someone" quite hard!

Congratulations on being stabbed. I hope that (a) you don't have a reaction to it, and (b) it works.

[antisoppist]

I have a massive bruise on my upper arm now. I do bruise very easily and expect to from blood being taken but it hasn't ever happened from flu injections, all previously done at the GP by a nurse. It is making me wonder how pharmacists get trained in doing injections.

[nineveh_uk]

Ow! I hope it isn't too painful.

I've had flu jabs by pharmacists a couple of times and they've been very good, so perhaps you were just unlucky, but it's a bit tough!

[malkingrey]

One trick I learned from my husband the EMT -- if you've got a voice in the process, inquire if they've got any EMTs around who'd like to do it. They often have more experience with IV sticks and the like than the RNs do. (And once you've gotten used to doing it in a moving ambulance, doing it in a nice stable hospital room is easy-peasy. Or so I'm told.)

Also, student nurses usually learn on artificial practice arms, but most EMTs learn by practicing on each other. At least around here, anyhow.

[nineveh_uk]

I've never had an injection from a paramedic - they tend not to be around in the routine places - but totally see that a moving ambulance would make for good skills! If I can, I book the expert phlebotomist rather than a nurse, there's nothing like the experts who do it all the time, though I'm lucky I am easy to do (a look at my arm last year was actually met by a spontaneous "oh thank God" from a woman who'd evidently had a bad morning, though probably not as bad as the patients!).

[lilysea]

Oh no!

I've had enough really bad experiences with blood draws that I would have said

NO THAT IS NOT OK, I WILL NEED YOUR MORE EXPERIENCED SUPERVISOR TO DO THE BLOOD DRAW HERSELF

[nineveh_uk]

I was very tempted to say that! But in practice, whilst I dislike blood tests, I've never had a bad experience with one, because I have giant bulging veins in both elbows that no-one can fail to succeed with if they know their job at all. So I decided just to go for it, though had she got it wrong she wouldn't have got a second chance.

[azdak]

Why does it take a month for them to get the results? Is this part of the world-beatingness?

[nineveh_uk]

Unusually, this isn't Boris Johnson's fault! It's because it is a research project, and they let people get their results, rather than the primary aim being to inform/treat the volunteers. People who had the fingerprick antibody test (those who don't like needles and younger children) got the results at the appointment, but samples go off to the Francis Crick Institute for testing. I assume that it is just a question of time taken to process, and probably sending results out in batches or something. So we get informed, but fast processing and information back to volunteers isn't the priority.

[azdak]

Fair enough.

This reminds me, though, that even in this day and age, when Wolfgang reads about some terrible instance of social collapse, or even a minor injustice, he will say "It's all Maggie's fault!" We can but hope that decades from now, people are still saying "It's all Boris's fault!"

[nineveh_uk]

We can but hope!

[sir_guinglain]

Bleeding people is very mediaeval.

[nineveh_uk]

I really wish I had kept a copy of the original, it sounded like it had been written by a medieval torturer who nonetheless thought consent was important.