Boy, does it ever feel strange....

To be the FNG!

I survived week one of training, with mistakes, of course, but only two that I'd consider 'major'.

For those of you who know me in real life, this is indeed something of a miracle. Usually I consider every flawed thing I do at work to be major and I beat myself up over it for days.

I hope the lack of this doesn't mean I'm becoming a complacent state employee!

The lesser of evils, was having bad fingers which somehow overlooked a letter. Instead of typing in NAC for a sodium level, my fingers forgot to put the 'C' in the code. That brought up the code for Core Lab's sodium test which has a bunch of indices, while Critical Care Lab's doesn't. So, I had to fill out a variance report so the patient's account would be credited.

My other mistake was a really good one. Blood Bank sent a bag of plasma to us for dispensing to the appropriate place. Of course, it was sent via the tube system in a heavy duty biohazard bag.

Being the FNG, I did what I'd seen the other trainees do: I grabbed the scissors and cut open the bag. There was just one problem.

The scissors were so pathetic they wouldn't even cut *melted* butter. Because they were so dull, it created an additional problem. Instead of that nice, quick and even cut, it meandered across the plastic, where, unnoticed by me, the tubing from the plasma bag had pressed into the bag's seam.

I cut the damn tube wide open.

Yup. The truth can now be told. Plasma is like oil in that a small spill looks like gallons have been dumped.

And, I got to put into practice the things I'd read (and bitched to you all about) earlier this week on how to clean up a biohazard spill.

Of course Murphy's Law was in full effect - the nurse came to pick up the plasma right away. Figures, doesn't it?

We had to send the plasma back to blood bank, explain the situation, and have it repackaged and returned to us. I felt incredibly stupid about that one for about a half hour, till someone told me one of the CLS's had done the same thing a couple of weeks ago. And, she's been doing this job for a good many years. Whew!

The up side of this is that when I was telling about it the next morning, the CLS said, "Why didn't you just tear the bag open? Those scissors are shit!"

I said I'd tried, but couldn't rip the plastic. She's this tiny thing, too, and I thought if she could do it, I should be able to, too! So, I asked if there was a trick to it. Yep. There's a weak point in the bag. No one ever finds it unless someone tells them about it, so now I can rip the bags open and impress the next FNG's when my turn comes! LOL

I was scheduled to work in Critical Care Lab this week as well. But, the boss gave me the new schedule and I begin in Special Care Nursery tomorrow. So, I guess that means I'm doing okay in the lab. The other new trainees (with the exception of the other 4 a.m. person who started at the BHTS a few weeks after me) have been taking several weeks to get the lab stuff under their belts. So, I'm excited to see what the next phase will bring.

Now, this boggled my mind. I am the last person to join the new team, since I took vacation while I was still considered a part-timer. So, everyone else has been working there for a month.

My former a.m. phlebotomy team-mate and trainee, "R" is working the overnight shift in NICU/CCL. My boss, Kathy, had asked me to make sure that R had gotten signed off on capillary punctures before she went over to NICU. Trying to train R was a royal pain in the arse. First of all, she ignored the missive from Kathy. She didn't feel the "need" to know this particular aspect of phlebotomy.

That's all well and good, as the lab really prefers venous punctures, but there are times when a fingerstick is all you can get. And, with her going to NICU, her job involves heelsticks. So, if she couldn't get a venous puncture when she was working the floor, she'd come find someone else to do the fingerstick, rather than taking the initiative to learn how to do 'em herself.

So, the first time I tried to show her, and to have her do a stick, she thought automatically that she'd be sticking me. Sorry...I asked her to find someone else to stick. I'd had both hands stuck with my class students a couple of days before and enough was enough. I'd supervise while she did the stick.

She didn't want to make the effort, so she left and went home.

I ended up taking her out on the floor on another day, demonstrating a stick, and asking her to finish it up. She did, but made a mess of it, so we had to stick another finger to finish up. And, I went ahead and signed her off, most unwillingly, and made sure I told Kathy of my feelings. Kathy's butt was in the wringer because that paperwork was missing, and needed to be in that day, so I helped her out. But, that's the only time I've ever signed someone off like that, and I'll never do it again. Why?

Because R has been on that floor for a MONTH, and she just stuck her first baby LAST NIGHT! And, she was *excited* about it!

"KATE! I did my first heelstick last night! But, I didn't like it - I don't like to stick the babies!"

Oh gawds. Why, oh why did you take on this job? That's what our job IS. It's not to work in CCL; we're only supposed to be fill-ins on that floor. We are there to get those lab tests on those very babies.

R went on to explain to me that she just can't hold onto those tiny heels.

Oh, come on. To quote the Marines - "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome". That's what we do every time we work with the WB's (memory refresher = Warrior Babies)

Though I congratulated her, truth told, I was more than a little pissed. There is no way in hell that she should have been just shadowing folks for a month. I intend to be sticking heels by the end of this week. I expect to have someone following me for a couple of weeks till they're confident of my abilities to work with the WB's, but I'm not about to shirk the responsibilities I was hired for.

If I seem unfair, so be it. The thought crossed my mind that the reason she's working overnights might have been because she figured that there would be little to do on that shift, comparatively speaking. And, part of the reason I say this is because I know how she was trained on a.m. phlebotomy because *I* did the bulk of her training. And yet, once she was finished, I've seen her take shortcuts that are not protocol.

I'm anal about things like that. Procedures generally have steps and stages for a reason. Even in phlebotomy.

I'm not God. Some days I don't even consider myself a very good phlebotomist. Yet, I know that I am. (A good phlebotomist, not God! LOL) And, perhaps I take my job too seriously, but thing is, I don't work for the paycheck. I work because I want to make a difference! I want to leave my job at the end of the day and know that I've put out a minimum of 100%, and I'd prefer to think I did even more. And, I am saddened every time I see someone who is more thrilled about what they earn instead of what they *do*. But, that's just me. There's truth in that saying, "Do what you love, the money will follow".

That damn soapbox keeps finding its way under my feet. Sorry about the vent, folks!

In the lighter side of this job - I really *can* take my knitting to work and actually get some done. Totally unbelievable!

Both the lab and the nursery are "feast or famine". So, if there's nothing else to do, we are allowed to read, surf the 'Net, knit, etc. We just have to be able to drop whatever we're doing at a moment's notice to respond when necessary.

I have an aversion to surfing the 'Net at work. Sure, I'll do so, but it's usually in the context of something work-related. The other folks routinely read and answer their email, play games, do crosswords, etc.

I won't answer email at work. First of all, everything we do is tracked, so I'm not about to release email addresses of people I know into the BHTS's ether for unknowns to have. I won't surf the 'Net for the same reason. What if a naughty site pops up? If they trace that back, will they think I purposefully went to that site? I did try to play some online computer games this week when it was quiet. Not a good plan for me. I equate games with relaxing. I noted that when I had to minimize the screen and go back to work, I made stupid errors in the coding because I had previously been looking at the screen 'unfocused' if that makes sense. My brain didn't want to focus any longer, so no games for me. Knitting is fairly mindless for me, so I'll stick to that to keep my hands busy!

And, speaking of busy...I see it's now almost my bedtime and I still need to shower and wash my hair so I can sleep a bit later tomorrow morning.

I haven't forgotten that I still need to finish up the vacation saga, and also do more on the discussion about child-rearing that was started on Orion's blog last week. It will all get finished in due course!

See y'all next time!