Blood Draws

I personally cannot help you, but have you tried YouTube? There are so many instructional videos, there must be something useful under a "phlebotomy" or "draw blood" search. Good luck with your career!

The vein feels spongy and you may need to feel around for a while before you find it. Make sure you pull the skin tight so the vein does not roll.

I would sit & practice feeling the vein on myself at home. I would sit & while watching tv, i would feel for the vein and put my finger right on it. this helps to get your fingertips trained to feel for the firm bounce of a vein or that is what i call it anyway. This is good for those people where you can't see it. When ddrawing and you have a turniquit on, try lightly tapping the vein, this will can the vein to swell making it easier to find. Once you have it located, then you want to line the needle & vein up where the needle is laying on top of the vein going in the same direction. put needle where is is in a 45 degree angle or a little bit less and then with firm but committed movement, puncture skin and top wall of vein. If your not good on angles, i told my students to imagine a line perpendicular to the skin and one horizontal with the skin & go in between those two. Now for practice at home, i have found a ripe orange to be the most accurate in feel for going through skin & vein and i did that over & over to get the feel of going deep enough to get through without going too deep and puncturing all the way thru. I didn't draw blood mind, I started iv's for power injecting. When you have really loose skin, I used tape to hold the skin tight and it helps you to be more accurate. Best of luck and while I hate to say it the best learning tool is practice on live people! Best of luck.