A group of blood drawers lurks in Uptown Butte.
But don't fear: It's the team at Intermountain Health’s St. James Hospital, whose phlebotomists collect blood to help lab scientists make a diagnosis.
Annmarie Downey is a phlebotomist, having completed on-the job training to safely collect blood. She entered the field out of a desire to help people and work in the medical field. Her sister is a nurse.
“My brain doesn't work that way,” she said.
So, three years ago she joined the hospital program and began her training by stabbing oranges and bananas. She later progressed to working with a synthetic plastic arm, followed with additional practice on her coworkers. Once she became familiar with the job, Downey could finally start collecting blood samples from patients.
Since starting her job, Downey said she has drawn blood from everyone from four days old to over 100 years old. She has only had one person say they enjoyed getting their blood drawn.
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Everyone else has varying degrees of discomfort — from physically recoiling to feeling faint, Downey said
Because every patient is different, she has worked to develop a calm demeanor. For some people that means explaining what's going on, while other times it's being ready to follow a patient's arm when they reflexively pull away, she said.
Once the sample has been taken, the container is labeled and recorded and shipped to the lab, staffed by Heather Wilson and personnel that perform some quick checks or transfer to the medical facility’s full lab.
Wilson began her own career as a phlebotomist, a requirement before entering the field. She then transferred into the hospital's lab where she reviews the incoming materials, what tests are called for and prepares them for the extensive set of automatic equipment, each capable of fulfilling the numerous tests called for by providers. These tests can count cells, detect oddities and spot infections.
Willson stressed that human intervention remains critical as machines can't detect or understand all health concerns.
For example, one issue is when a blood sample include IV fluids, said Wilson. That can happen when a person is in the hospital.
The machine will easily turn up a response and pass it along without a care, said Wilson, but it's up to a scientist to determine the validity of the test.
According to Lab Director Maria Brown, experience is the key and stressed that people should get their annual blood work.
She recalled one patient who came in with a broken bone. Blood tests showed large, deformed cells, indicating advanced cancer.
Brown believes regular blood testing would have caught the disease earlier.