Patient Suffers Permanent Nerve Damage After Getting Blood Drawn

Case Overview

This case involves an otherwise healthy patient who was injured when he went to a clinical laboratory for a routine blood draw. The nurse who was drawing the patient’s blood hit a nerve as he attempted to draw blood. The patient suffered from permanent nerve damage as a result of the nurse’s negligence. An expert in phlebotomy was sought to review the case and discuss the standard of care for drawing blood.

Questions to the Internal Medicine expert and their responses

Do you routinely draw blood from the antecubital fossa?

You do normally draw blood in the antecubital fossa area of the arm and the main vein in this area would be the median cubital vein.

What anatomy do you learn for licensing to avoid hurting surrounding structures while doing blood draws?

The anatomy of the arm showing the veins, arteries, capillaries, and nerves running in your body can be found on posters, anatomy books, and any phlebotomy manual.

About the expert

This expert has over 40 years of experience with phlebotomy. She gained her AA as a medical laboratory technician at Grossmont College and is certified in phlebotomy and phlebotomy instruction. She worked for five years as a phlebotomy supervisor at Roper Hospital, where she trained nurses, medical students and medical technology students in phlebotomy, and as a phlebotomy instructor at Trident Technical College for two years. She proceeded to set up a national phlebotomy technician organization to provide training for phlebotomists around the country and has been serving as its executive director since 1983.