I love Bobs Burgers and this episode had me dying and cringing. The best part: Linda calls us full bottomists 🤣

Omg I understand people having bad experiences with prior blood draws but when I have patients come in telling me what needle to use, only giving me one vein as an option, wincing and pulling away. It completely sets me up to fail everytime because now you gave me anxiety too and I already feel like I’m going to fail before I even looked at your veins !

Kaiser in Vancouver is hiring job # 1451678 it is a float and a great opportunity! It is not often they have jobs available so if your in the area and looking for a job I encourage you to apply! Remember school is experience. Yes you have to have to be licensed to practice phlebotomy in the state of Washington, but if you went to an accredited school, you are able to get that license.

Has anyone noticed a correlation between IVDU and difficult veins that feel soft and almost pillowy? I’m used to hard, cord-like veins due to scar tissue - where they could be mistaken for tendons.

I’ve had a couple patients over the past year with characteristic scarring on the skin, but when I palpated, the veins felt like… a thin plastic bag filled with air? The surface-level ones left an indent in the tissue after palpation.Not normal mushy veins like when someone’s dehydrated.

Anyone know what I’m talking about? What causes that?

I passed today with a 433! Was wondering the best places to start working at?

After a year and two months of unemployment and about six months of actively applying, I finally got an interview with BioLife for a Plasma Center Technician position. I don’t have experience with plasma or phlebotomy, so getting this chance felt like a big step forward. I went in today, arrived early, and ended up sitting alone in a conference room for about forty minutes past the scheduled interview time. It was busy, so I didn’t mind, and the interview itself went well. They told me to expect a second interview sometime next week.

Now that I’m home, I keep thinking about questions I should have asked, so I wanted to ask here for advice from people who work at BioLife or in similar roles. I asked about the uniform and was told that PCTs wear dark blue scrubs Monday through Thursday, fun scrubs on Fridays, and BioLife T-shirts with jeans on weekends. They didn’t specify what kinds of jeans are allowed. I only own baggy jeans and loose boot-cut jeans, so I’m wondering if those are acceptable or if I need to buy something else.

I also asked about shoes, and they said they need to be light-colored, leather or leather-like, easy to wipe, and easy to spot if blood gets on them. They mentioned that if blood gets on your shoes, they make you throw them out immediately. I’m trying to find something practical that isn’t Crocs. If anyone works at BioLife, what shoes or boots do you use? I also wondered if waterproofing sprays actually help in this kind of environment.

The last thing I’m trying to figure out is scheduling. The shifts rotate weekly between mornings and evenings, anywhere from 5 AM to 9 PM. I originally planned to get a second job, but with rotating shifts, that might be harder than I expected. I’m looking for very flexible remote work that I could do overnight or partially during the day. I need extra income because $18 an hour for around 30 hours a week isn’t enough to cover my student loans, credit card payments, and other bills.

Any advice, tips, or personal experiences would really help. I want to do well as a PCT and hopefully open doors for future opportunities, even if this role doesn’t lead to a phlebotomy license or certification. Thank you in advance.

Hi everyone. I live in Los Angeles, California and I’m planning on taking phlebotomy classes next year. I want to self study and take notes for now so I can be more well prepared . Does anyone know of any helpful videos or resources for self studying. I know drawing blood is something that you have to be physically there for but I just want to self study for the other things for now like memorizing blood cultures etc.

i’m in my second week of phlebotomy school and i’ve done 4 sticks, 2 of which were successful and were visible/veins i could feel.

one person was notoriously a hard stick and the other person someone was able to draw from but i couldn’t. i’m not super worried about the first person but the second person since i saw someone get blood from her im discouraged :/

the only vein i could see and feel was already drawn from. (they said i could draw from the same vein just below it and i did try but i didnt get anything i just ended up hurting her and i feel really bad. also they’re teaching us to fish for veins i thought that was a big no no????)

they’re only letting us draw from the median cubital veins and cephalic veins, no mention of hand veins or forearms and we are completely forbidden from drawing from the basillic.

there’s also no heat packs on campus to help us get a vein. it feels like unrealistic practice since i would have heat packs in a clinic/hospital or at least a glove with hot water, the vein finder machine or use a double tourniquet method but they’re not even helping us with that!! if we can’t get it it’s just an “oh well better luck next time!” (also limited to three draws and a single finger stick per class)

and on the hard sticks i could see and feel hand veins but they haven’t mentioned anything about drawing from there?? i’m gonna try and ask next week about hand veins but i feel like they should’ve already told us about this.

i don’t know what to do im limited in resources/techniques theyre just letting us stick with minimal critiques on methods and saying we’ll get better with practice which yes thats true but dude can you help me??? i asked and its just the basics i already know and im doing it and its not good results

i know it’s early on in my practice but it doesn’t feel like im being set up for success tbh :( i’m also extra discouraged bc im not a hard stick i have great veins so everyone comes to me and collects their successful draws but im just here struggling it doesn’t feel very fair :(

also sweaty hands and gloves are a pain is there anything i can do about that?? i size up the gloves but it impedes on my ability to do things so it makes the draw unnecessarily harder for me to do 😭