On Sundays in elderly care (unlike most other departments in the hospital) there are no phlebotomists. So while the SHOs busy themselves reviewing any sick patients after 8am handover the FY1 has to tour the 8 elderly care wards in search of blood forms and bleed all the patients. This often involves a bit of detective work, and there are inevitably surprise forms left behind by phlebs from the day before with excuses such as "patient unavailable" "patient being washed" "unable to locate site" or my favourite so far which looked something like "patient called me an arse-wipe" which probably actually said nothing of the sort..
Today it took me approximately four hours to bleed 11 patients, cannulate 2 patients, fail to bleed one patient and fail to cannulate another (who yelled "NO NO I NEED MY ARM" when I asked to borrow it to take some blood and flatly refused to comply). I carry the blood taking stuff in a tray with attached sharps bin. One of the more batty little old ladies eyed me suspiciously when I entered her room and asked what charity I was collecting for!
Sat down next to my SHO having sent off the last blood of the day.
- I'd be happy if I never ever had to search for another vein in my whole entire life!
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
- Hmm.. maybe an anaesthetist?
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