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Spread the Word: A Medical Technology Student’s Perspective

Venipuncture Day

Published June 3, 2009 10:04 AM by Tiffany Landis
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Don't you just love surprises? I walked into hematology and we were going over the instruments used in the hematology lab to do routine tests. Once we were finished talking about that, the teacher stopped and let us know she had a surprise for us.

Then walked in four of our other professors. We were told we were going to do venipuncture today. I was surprised but also relieved. I thought we were going to do venipunctures the next day, so of course I was already getting nervous.

I was actually happy they surprised us the way they did because then you did not have time to worry about it--you just went over all the steps in your head and did all the necessary prep work like making sure you correctly identified your patient, found your vein, washed with alcohol and tied the tourniquet, and then  all that was left to do was put the needle into your partners vein and draw blood.

My veins did not want to cooperate, but my partner did a really good job! All my classmates did a really good job. It wasn't nearly as bad as what I imagined it to be. I know I was nervous and did not want to hurt my partner, but if you know what you are doing then it really is not that bad.

posted by Tiffany Landis
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Our phlebotomy training was not much of a surprise for us - it was scheduled for the first few days of orientation, before we started our Clinical Hematology course, in July 2003 at the beginning of our one-year MT training program in Winston Salem, NC.  We stuck each other on our 2nd day of class.  One girl darn near passed out upon getting stuck; the hilarious thing about it was this girl stuck dogs as a technician in a vet clinic during high school and was so good at blood collection from OTHERS that the phlebotomy department snapped her up for a part-time job right then. LOL!

Another surprise I found out from technologists who had graduated from other programs is that we got a HECK of a lot more sticks in at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's program than many others out there!  WFUBMC required 100 successful blood collections, which we completed between July and November.  4 members of the class would stick between 7A and 8A one week, then the other four would have their turn the next week.  The alternating weeks were EXTREMELY nice since we could sleep in a bit and just come to class at 8:30 on our non-phlebotomy weeks.

One guy I stuck was banged up pretty darn bad in a motorcycle accident, and I felt horrible for him because he seemed to be in so much pain from a tiny stick in the hand (the only accessible vein since he had casts on both arms). :P

Stephanie Mathis, MT(ASCP), Generalist - Clinical Laboratory Scientist, Danville Regional Medical Center June 4, 2009 11:34 PM
Danville VA

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