21 Down, 44 To Go

Day Two Of Sticks added 13 to my overall total of sticks.

I'm undoubtedly going to bore everyone with the details for now, but until I am on my own, I won't be forming "impressions" of what I'm going through - too many people watching over me; I don't seem to absorb the fine nuances while I am trying to capture the overall picture.

I was fortunate to work with a tech today who sounded as though his teaching style was much like mine - and it was. I wish he was assigned to the bulk of the day instead of just the busy time.

Let me explain a bit.

The training guidelines want us to get our sticks in a prescribed manner, such as the one I talked about in a previous post: 20 heelsticks on the bigger babies, then 20 on the preemies, etc.

It always seems like a waste of time when the SOP gets that involved in training procedures.

You need to look at the skill level of the student. A person who has never drawn blood before is going to have more problems than someone with some experience. A teacher should recognize this and adapt the training to suit. I know Orion and Two Wolves both teach like that, as do I. With a new and inexperienced trainee, it would be logical and NECESSARY to adapt their training to ease them into working with the smaller babies. But, I've done bigger babies in Peds...and you know what? Those babies are actually harder to do - they're generally more mobile, they've had time to develop some social skills, and have figured out that the strangers in the white coats generally do unpleasant things to them. NICU babies are very ill, to be sure, but they respond so much differently to things around them.

So, I was delighted to find that my teacher had no problem with me doing a wide variety of sticks. I drew not only the bigger babies, but also preemies and micropreemies today. I also did a metabolic screen, which *gasp* I wasn't SUPPOSED to do until I had all my heelsticks completed!

I'll probably be signed off on bigger babies tomorrow; then I can go draw them without someone watching over me. And, they will start making sure I get the sticks on the smaller ones so I can sign off on them sooner, too. Works for me!

The current tally is, then:
Bigger babies - 15 out of 20 finished;
Preemies - 3 out of 20
Micropreemies - 2 out of 15
Newborn Panels - 1 out of 10.

There is also a rumor floating around the lab that in future months those of us who are lab techs will be trained to do the processing on the blood gases. It's all done mechanically, so if we're trainable, it should work. LOL The med techs will still have to evaluate the labs, but it will certainly ease things if we can help out during rush times, especially when all the med and lab techs are out drawing.

I'm already thinking ahead, too. The NICU is on the same floor as Mother-Baby, which is logical. Our a.m. phleb team has always drawn the Moms. I'm going to suggest that we take that over; the moms generally don't get drawn until the last thing - we have always tried to let them sleep in as long as possible. So, it seems to me that under those circumstances, we could get through our morning rush with the babies and then go over and draw the moms. Besides, there were a lot of times when the mothers were in the NICU with the babies, so we had to cancel the labs. Now we could just draw them right there.

Look at me...making more work for myself already! Sheesh! Glutton for punishment!!!