So, I told this story to Jed last week and he thought it was interesting enough to share with our friends and family. Now, normally, the “funny” things that happen during med school that I tell Jed about end in “..and he said Spondylopathy?!!….” or “Rash decisions in hot kids… get it?” Anyway, the point is most of what happens in my life would not be funny to anyone else, and to be honest, is only mildly funny to me. But one thing that is always funny is fear. Fear, and people tripping. Since this story has nothing to do with people tripping, I’ll get straight to the fear part.
We second year medical students have had very minimal exposure to patients or techniques so we are all scared to death to do anything for the first time. So, we are all starting to get used to talking to patients and getting a history and such, but last week, they hit us with our first taste of the big guns. Phlebotomy. This is just the fancy word for taking blood. This is by FAR the most invasive thing that we have ever been allowed to do on a patient. The catch is that NONE of us have ever done it before, so they decide, it would be bad for us to do it for the first time on patients, we might hurt them. The smart thing to do is to do it on EACH OTHER first. So, they set us all up in a cramped room, all of us nervous about sticking the crap out of eachother with needles, some with a very real fear of needles themselves, and show us a video on how to get veins, draw blood, and not to permanently damage someone. Having a pretty good knowledge of anatomy, I realize how amazing it is to draw blood without poking someones nerve and causing all sorts of pain. There are all sorts of important structures in the arm that if punctured, could really mess someone up. So at the end of the movie, they divide us all up into rooms, give us tubes and needles, and pretty much tell us to go to town.
We have to pair up to draw blood on eachother. Everyone is pairing up and one of my friends, a rather large, manly, male friend, admits to us that he’s somewhat of a fainter when it comes to getting his blood drawn. Obviously, noone wants to be this guy’s partner at this point. So I, being the angel of mercy that I am, tell him that I will be his partner. That’s right. Of all the people in the room, I get the big fainting guy for my first phlebotomy experience. So, there are trained phlebotomists (like 2) in the room to help all of us if we get into trouble. He wants to poke me first, so I let him. Another thing of note is that my veins in my arm (on both sides) are practically jumping out of my skin. An epileptic blind man could draw my blood. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an epileptic blind man drawing my blood, it was my fainting friend. So, he puts the tourniquet on to “find my veins”, which are already screaming at him, so he takes the needle (one of the biggest blood drawing needles I have ever seen. They didn’t want to waste the smaller, more expensive needles on the med students) and jams it in to my vein, no blood is going into the tube, and I’m trying to be encourage through the pain, while Im sure my eyes were screaming. He starts to pull it out and digs around a little…. OWWWWW…. but I’m a trooper, I tell him to just pull the needle back a bit, and the tube begins to fill with blood.
Now it’s my turn. He’s way bigger than me, so Im thinking if this guy faints, there’s no way I’m going to be able to catch him, so I have a few of the people around on look out. My first time poking someone with a needle, everyone’s watching, waiting for him to faint. I put the tourniquet on, find what I think is a vein,(no veins were obvious on him, of course), and tell him to turn his head so he doesn’t see. I put the needle in, very nervous at this point, but Im not shaking, the tube starts to fill with blood. It’s full and the nurse tells me to pop another tube in and fill that one too, just to get used to switching tubes. I do. It goes surprisingly well. Both tubes are filled within a minute or so of the puncture and he asks if I have the needle in yet. I release the turnicate and tell him he’s done. He didnt even feel it. Im feeling pretty good about myself until he sees his blood in the tubes and starts to sway with dizziness. I grab his shoulders and lead him to the desk where he lies down and I get him a couple bottles of juice. He’s gonna make it. I think I could get used to this doctor thing.
