Stab! Stab! Stab!

We had a venepuncture training course at work today. It was quite useful, but we were only practicing on fake arms, and it is quite different to the real thing. I did my first stab on a real person about a week ago, and I was so nervous! I just didn't want to put the needle in there, for fear of hurting her. I think it probably made it worse that it wasn't some random person, but a girl at work who I still have to see every week, and if I'd completely stuffed it up I'd feel bad every time I saw her!

One of the big problems I had with the dummy arms was that the blood running through them was a very pale colour, so it was practically impossible to tell if there had been any flashback, and thereby, see if you were actually in the vein or not.

My first go at taking blood on a real patient will be next week. I'm nervous, but hopefully my nerves won't be so bad that I chicken out altogether and just get one of the other girls to do it! The only way to learn, I'm told, is by doing it, so I better just get stuck in and stab as many veins as I can while I have the opportunity.