'You might want to turn that lancet round.....'

This, is a 'SAFETY' lancet. Millions of diabetics use them every day to check their blood glucose daily. The reason Ive whacked this in here is because today i had 6/10th of my OSCE. (Oh look, another medical school acronym)... OSCE stands for Observed Structured Clinical Examination and it means you get to don your white coat (not actually allowed in hospitals anymore...) and show the skills you have learned throughout the year/crammed the night before.
We got a brilliant set, no bloody spirometry (technically no blood should be involved...), Lung and heart auscultation(listening)...showing someone how to use a metered dose inhaler, ECG and pulses, CPR, blood pressure and blood sample taking and the handling of blood products...

Mine went OK, its one of the pluses of being a 'Williams', i was at then end of the day which means i get almost an extra day to prepare than your average Anderson or Andrews...(this makes up for the years of going last for EVERYTHING at school...).
The thing with these is that your potential for being able to competently complete the task is 100%, they are simple and we've done them a million times, but you lose marks for small things- e.g. not washing your hands at all, not introducing yourself, moaning that you cant count the ribs of the patient because he/she is too fat, not washing your hands after taking one persons dorsalis pedis pulse (foot) before you take the examiners temporal pulse. you get MINUS points for not putting gloves on before handling blood. I know someone who crashed the ECG machine. don't know how that one works.
Here's MY big mistake.....i almost lanceted myself! what a foooooooooooooooooooool!
The thing with the blood taking station is that you have to talk to a plastic hand. What i mean is that you approach and go 'Here Mr. Hand, let me shake you (joking...), My name is Lucy Williams, I am a first year medical student and Ive been asked to take a small blood sample today. This will be from your thumb, it will hardly hurt, is this Ok?' The hand says yes and then you pick up the lancet, twist that pink bit off and as you can QUITE CLEARLY see in the photo there is an ARROW which indicated where the stabby bit comes out..... I was steaming along until the examiner (who seemed to be quite jolly and up for a bit of banter...) said 'You might want to turn that around, or you might get blood everywhere...then i might pass out and that would be embarrassing wouldn't it'.
So I turned it around and stabbed the plastic hand with it, apologised to it and continued....

Lets be honest, It could have been worse.


At least I put it in the sharps bin once I'd finished....