She's winning.....

And by "she", I'm talking about my trainee, T.

She's advancing with the skills she should have had back in week three of her training. And, both Dean and I are seeing glimmers that might indicate that we'll have a very good phlebotomist when she's got some good, solid experience under her belt.

T and I have talked about the failures of the early weeks of her training. Much of it seems to be because she was placing too much emphasis on her required reading outside of the on-the-job training. Believe me, I understand how she feels. I've gone back and looked at my textbooks after actual experience and it's amazing how much more sense everything makes. I am going to spend some more time pondering this as time permits. I wonder if it is feasible for a student who has never done this type of work to read the material while in the process of the hands on portion.

Undoubtedly, it depends on the student. But I do think that when people are generally typed as either being "seeing" or "hearing" people, the difficulty strikes when a "seeing" person is suddenly confronted with "hearing" the material at the same time. In the classroom situation the phlebotomy student is placed in a "hearing" situation with minimal hands-on or "seeing" tasks, then as clinical approaches those roles eventually reverse.

T still has her problems, of course. She's still likely to mishandle the tubes from time to time; she's still having trouble with basic paperwork. But at least she's not afraid to ask questions! And, Dean and I were so proud of her a few days ago. She was with Dean, and they were with a patient who was such a difficult stick that Dean was just going to call it a "senior" draw and have one of the rest of us come to look over the situation. T asked, "Can I take a look?" And proceeded to not only find a spot, but do a successful draw on a patient that was unlikely to have been a good experience for any of us.

I'll take over this coming week and begin training her on the psych wards and the burn/trauma units. When possible, we'll "split" floors and she'll go do her own patients while I do mine, only using me as a backup if she has a question. She'll be taking her training on the correct procedure for doing blood cultures and type and screens, along with our newest trainee, E, who will start on Monday with Dean.

E's a cutie. He was one of my students when I TA'd at Kirkwood last semester. And he's going to be a good phlebotomist, methinks. My only concern right now is that I've never seen him with patients, so I'm concerned about his bedside manner, for he was a smart-aleck in class...you know, the smart, studious, but wise-ass type? That's E. But, he has an awfully cute butt. *grin* That has to count for something. ;)