School

I am attending school to get a degree as a Veterinary Technician and am nearing the end of my second semester which requires a practicum of 360 hours within nine weeks of actual clinic time performing and learning various procedures. Fortunately the hospital I work at is an approved site and I can get my practicum hours in while performing my normal duties as Vet. Assistant.

Today I did my first blood draw. A dog was being restrained by another Asst. and as I walked by, the Tech. handed me the syringe saying, "We need a blood draw". The Tech. knew me well, knew to take me by surprise so I wouldn't have time to think. I automatically took what was handed to me, prepped the syringe, took hold of the dog's leg, the Tech. told me how to find the vein and then reality hit.

I asked, "What angle is the needle inserted and will I feel it enter the vein?" She replied with, "You know how to do this. Sometimes you feel it enter, sometimes you don't." She told me what to feel for to find the vein when palpating the leg surface. I looked at needle, rotated it to bevel up position (the Tech. watched for that and gave a small nod when she saw that I knew to do that) and then I inserted the needle under the skin and hit the vein right away.

My first blood draw was a success with only one poke and no fishing around to find the vein. Good thing for me. The dog I was getting blood from was the favorite dog of one of our Drs. The Dr. would be very understanding if I required multiple needle sticks of her dog since she is an advocate of education through hands on experience, but thank goodness I got it on the first one and caused no discomfort to her dog.

Today was a milestone; my first blood draw.