*Disclamer*
This placement was carried out once a week for a number of weeks but has been condensed into 3 weeks to allow for easier reading.
Day 1
First day of placement – had 3 clients come for health screenings, one man (30) and 2 woman (47 and 56). After a briefing from Chris on what was going to happen I observed the first screening before assisting with taking blood pressure and body composition on one of the women. I also observed how everything was carried out and the order ( blood pressure first followed by body comp and finally taking bloods so that the blood doesn’t get on the body comp machine) in addition to how to conduct yourself and the way to feedback the information post screening.
Day 2
3 (woman) clients came In today for health screenings, myself and another assistant were allow to take the lead this time and complete all the assessments. I was in charge of taking blood pressure and blood samples. Taking blood pressure went well with only a slight issue being one of the ladies having a top which was hard to roll up high enough above the elbow to put the blood pressure strap around her upper arm. The blood taking ititally I had a problem with as the papet that is used to take the blood was different to the one I’ve used it the past, so after pricking one woman I asked for help and after being shown the different method I stabbed the woman again and whiel it wasn’t any where near a quickly completed as Chris had done i was able to take the her blood sample and one of from the other woman. One of the woman had really tough skin, which made the blood slow flowing and healed quickly making it hard to collect enough blood for a large enough sample, so Chris our supervisor took hers in order to get enough blood out.
Day 3
The first hour was spend completing health screenings on 2 ladies, as there was 3 of us assisting and running the screenings we each agreed an allocated role. Mine was taking the blood samples. The blood press and blood composition tests all went smoothly until I tied to take blood from one of the women. She had cold hands which would have been restricting the blood flow slightly but potenally down to my techquie or her being a natural slower bleeder I wasn’t able to get out enough blood for a sample quickly enough, meaning any blood collected coagulated making it useless. I pricked her fingers about 6 times and felt ebassised and confused as to how it had worked within a maxumum of 2 pricks with everyone else I had done but wasn’ t this time. After the 6th try we got chris who was overseeing the whole thing to come in and do it, i observed while he made it look easy, proving with lots of practice that even the more difficult cases can be done quickly and effectively. In the following hours we had 2 policeman come in in addition to a man and a woman who were part of the compantly checks. These screenings all went smoothly athough I didn’t take any blood samples from the remaining clients as i felt like that some people observation was required before I tried again.
Day 4
Today we had a total of 6 clients come in for health screenings (3 man and 3 women) . The first 3 worked for the police on the office based side, the third was a member of the public and the last 2 were patrol officers. I was tasked with doing body composition for each of the 6 clients, which went smoothly. I have observed so far thoughout placement that when a clients height is taken some of them ask whether they need to face forward or backwards even though the measuring scale is the same as at the doctors so everyone at somepoint would have had it done. I did some research and also heared from Chris that this can be cause by white coat hypertension (Cobos, B et al, 2015) when clients are put into a lab environment which they aren’t use to and cause them to need intrustiongs for even simple tasks hwich they othersie would not need guidance with which can make simple things they wpuld otherwise not have to be told to do be som
Day 5
Today we had 8 police officers come in for health screenings. While Chris took everyones blood sample, I did blood pressure and body composition which then allowed chris to feed back each persons result while the other person was being tested. I would have liked to have done a few of the blood samples in order have more practice but Chris can take them quicker so it allowed us to finish each pair of officers that came in faster and mean Chris had time to write up the results on to his graphy and results table before the next pair of officers arrived. I was also asked today whether i would feel comtable taking on some health screenings on my own, in order to allow ben to offer the police another day to come in as Chris can only do fridays. I felt pleased that i had been asked becuases it showed me that they trusted me and felt i was good enough to be able to take them on my own.
OBSERVATIONS/ FURTHER KNOWLAGE
- Many people need to be told how to do the simplest tasks when in the lab. In some people this is called white coat syndrome and causes them to have an elevated blood pressure which is otherwise normal under non lab conditions (1).
- The police pay any fines they owe in the form of donuts
- The Middle finger bleeds the best and the putting a bit of pressure so a small indent is made and the best place to prick someones finger is to the side, half way between the middle of the finger tip and the nail
THINGS TO WORK/IMPROVE ON
- Blood sampling techquie
- Developing tequenic of feeding back of results and information
OVERALL REFLECTIONS
While I need to keep practicing my blood sampling technique and developing my way of giving people feed back, i have assisted in health screening 24 clients most being police oficers but others offices and members of the public. Over the 24 health screenings i have learnt and obersivered a number of useful bit of infomation and techquies that I will attempt to use and put into use over the coming weeks, especially when I start taking health screenings myself.
REFERANCES
(1) Cobos, B., Haskard-Zolnierek , K. and Howard, K. (2015) white coat hypertension: improving the patient–health care practitioner relationship. Dovepress. Vol. 1, No. 1: 1-9. [Online] Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4427265/pdf/prbm-8-133.pdf
Eleanor James 