Venipuncture 101 for Nursing Students

Most nursing students know the pressure of doing venipuncture to patients at the beginning of their nursing career. It’s one of the most common clinical care procedures in healthcare settings and it takes a lot of practice to master this skill.

At first, nursing students are often doing venipuncture incorrectly. This is the reason why it’s common for them to miss or pop the patient’s vein during blood draws. Worse, some blood tube samples are being sent back by the laboratory because they are clotted or they have insufficient amounts. It takes a lot of practice to do blood draws quickly with less pain for the patient and without compromising the blood samples collected.

Aside from frequent practice, there are some techniques that can be helpful in mastering venipuncture quickly. Take note of the following tips:

• Know the equipment - different facilities use different brands of equipment for venipuncture. Familiarize yourself with the common ones like straight needles, butterfly needles, and vacutainers.
• Memorize the order of draw - blood tubes are color-coded based on each tube’s purpose and additive content. To prevent cross-contamination of additives, the proper order of blood draw should be followed. Blood tubes with sensitive markers are drawn first followed by the less sensitive ones to ensure accuracy of results.

• Learn about the special blood tests - there are some blood tests that require special steps to ensure accuracy of results. You need to be familiar with these tests so you know what to do whenever you encounter them. A good example is the TB Quantferon test. This blood test requires four special tubes to be filled up at a certain level in a certain order. When transporting the tubes to the laboratory, they have to be kept upright all the time.

• Master vein anatomy - anatomical position of veins varies among different people. However, if you know vein anatomy well you can quickly find a good spot for a blood draw. The antecubital fossa, metacarpal veins, and cephalic veins are the common good spots for venipuncture.
• Take every opportunity available to practice - be proactive and grab every opportunity available to do blood draws. It takes a lot of practice to get the hang of it. Don’t be afraid of patients complaining about your skill as this is a normal part of being in the healthcare field.
• Ask tips from seasoned nurses - experienced nurses have lots of tips for different nursing procedures. Don’t be shy to ask your senior nurses for any tips they can give to quickly master doing blood draws. This is helpful in avoiding the common mistakes of most nurses when doing blood draws.

Another good thing to do in mastering venipuncture is to watch other nurses do it. This is easy to do during clinical rotations but you can have more exposure by watching youtube videos. Many nurses are sharing videos of themselves doing blood draws and it’s a good way to familiarize yourself even more with this skill. Whenever you are losing confidence, just remember that all nurses experienced being a beginner and in no time you can also master this skill just like them.

Jean is a contributing blogger of Nurse List, a blog for nurses and nursing students in Canada.