Yesterday at clinicals was horrific. It was a day full of admonishment for everything from my demeanor to patient interaction to protocols to etiquetts I'd never been informed of. I'd rather not talk about it since it's still reeling in my soul. A few things I will mention though...
I forgot how to do tournequets right in the middle of a venipuncture on a patient. It blew me away. I'd been doing them for so long and then to just forget them like that. I did have a theory though. Yesterday when I was watching a lady's kid I leaned just right on my shoulder with my neck and cut of some blood flow to my brain. This is actually more fun than it sounds. Things start going dark and the world around you seems pointless and funny. This time things just went dark and I forgot where I was and why I was there. It is like getting high, except the chances for brain damage might be higher so, for the sake of phlebotomy, I'm gonna avoid it from now on. Mom things I have a lack of sleep but that's her excuse for everything that goes wrong in my life.
Anyway, it was all downhill from there. One of the techs probably thinks I'm incompetant and she's very well justified in that thinking if she is. I was feeling a bit funny in the head after, so I was thinking about calling it quits and going home. And possibly never coming back. If I blank out like that in venipuncture, I don't want to be a danger to my patients. I love my patients more than I thought I possibly could and I adhere to that medical saying "first do no harm." How selfish would I be if I put patients in jeapardy because of my incompetance? I was about to say I wanted to go home when I saw a sticker for a new draw. It was my favorite patient. I decided to stay just because of that patient. Patient M is awesome. I think it was God who caused that. Of all the patients in the hospital M's name was the one on that paper and the only one I would stay for. So, I decided to keep going.
Had etiquette problems once I got there. Apparently, you're suppost to go the moment a patient's doctor enters the room "his time is a hell of a lot more important than yours" my preceptor told me. And she's right. You're also not suppost to tell the patient they'll be going home. That's very sad. Because you don't know if they really will. The only reason I said it was because he wanted it so bad and I believed it would happen. I still believe that. No matter how sick he is. I may not have a Ph.D, an RN degree or even my official phlebotomy liscence, but I do have faith. When my patients have a will to keep fighting, I have faith in them. Even if I don't say it, I'll still maintain it, and want it communicated in the way I deal with the patients. Normally I do look upon the doom side of things and am a pessimist by nature, so I hope said faith means something.
Irregardless of the mistakes I make, which are numerous, I want them made only because I care about my patients. Whether it be looking up when a patient winces to ask them if they're ok and the needle slip out or staying too long to tell them it'll be ok, I'll make those mistakes because of ignorance and caring. Once I've made them and learned from them, I'll be a better phlebotomist because I will be able to use the proper knowledge in conjunction with that caring. When they wince I won't look up when I ask so that they won't need to be poked again and when it's time to go I squeeze their hand and look at them right in the eye because I won't need words.
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