The first time I tried, I didn't get the needle in the vein. I had palpated the vein with the tourniquet on, then swabbed the site with antiseptic, and turned away to assemble my equipment while the arm air-dried. And that was my mistake. I thought I had some physical landmarks to go on, and could remember where the vein was, for the few seconds it took to turn away and assemble my equipment (that's the way we've been practicing on the fake arms), but I wasn't 100% sure anymore when I looked back at my classmates arm. What I should have done at that point, was re-tie the tourniquet, re-palpate, re-cleanse, and try again. But I was nervous (it was my first time doing this after all) and I thought I could probably remember the right location, so I just went for it. Of course, it didn't work out.
My teacher wanted to make sure I had a successful experience before I left that night, so she called another person up for me to try on. This time I didn't take my eye off the site (it was pretty obvious, too) and I got it. As soon as I put the vacu-tube onto the needle holder, blood flowed in.
I had to let someone try on me afterward, but it wasn't bad. My carpool buddy and friend, who took the class last semester but didn't end up passing the written final so is taking it again, got to try on me. She's good at the skills part, and I trust her. It barely hurt at all when it went in, and she used pretty good technique throughout. The only criticism I'd have is that she didn't use the "push and pull" technique when putting the vacu-tube on, or taking it off, the needle holder. So it wiggled more than was necessary in my arm. Still, way better than many experiences I've had at professional labs.
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