• Question: if you work in a surgery do you have to see a lot of blood?

    Asked by lil to Riverside Surgery, Kerry - HCA, Hampton Surgery, Tarik - Dentist, East Sussex CITS, CLICK Federation, Amelia - GP on 16 Jan 2019.
    • Photo: Hampton Surgery

      Hampton Surgery answered on 16 Jan 2019:

      Lil,
      Thank you that`s a good question. In my role the answer is no not really. I see a lot of wounds but not actual running blood.Most of the work we do in primary care is routine so its very rare for us to see a major injury that is bleeding everywhere. We are much more likely to see patients with bad chests or back pain or hundreds of other conditions. If you think you like all the blood and crisis side them paramedic is an interesting role as they deal with all that crisis management. If we did have someone who bled a lot we would ring for the paramedic to come and help us.
      As a nurse I see lots of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma or diabetes and we can do so much to help them live full and active lives.
      When I first started as a student nurse I was worried about being able to cope with the messy side of nursing but you get used to it really quickly. I hope I ve answered your question. If not send me another message.
      Kirsty
      Practice Nurse

    • Photo: Kerry Haworth

      Kerry Haworth answered on 16 Jan 2019:

      Hello Lil,

      Surgery could mean in theatres in a hospital setting which carries out surgical procedures of it could mean a doctors surgery, both are very different. Which are you referring to?

      Primary care is often routine based procedures through appointments or clinics but requires experienced professionals. Blood can be found in this area of practice if blood samples need to be taken, other than that I saw little blood in this area of nursing.

      Surgical nursing and theatres where surgery takes places can mean a lot of blood, but please do not but put off by this. The highly skilled professionals working in these areas are extremely knowledgeable and are very good at containing bodily fluids and keeping the area “sterile” a term used to describe what we would call totally clean and free from bacteria.

      Kerry
      Student Nurse
      Band 3 HCA

    • Photo: Amelia Randle

      Amelia Randle answered on 18 Jan 2019:

      I work in a GP surgery and probably see a little bit of blood every day but I wouldn’t say a lot. Sometimes I take blood from a patient who comes to see me – to test it for health problems like diabetes. Sometimes I send a tube of blood off to the local laboratory for a range of different tests. I also do small operations such as putting in and removing implants.

      A lot of people who want to become a GP start out feeling a bit scared of seeing blood but they soon realise it’s nothing to worry about. If it really is a worry there are plenty of jobs in the NHS that don’t have any blood at all like being a dermatologist (skin doctor.) There are also plenty of jobs that have a lot of blood like being a surgeon or a Haematologist (A doctor that specialises in diseases of the blood)

    • Photo: CLICK Federation

      CLICK Federation answered on 21 Jan 2019:

      It depends on your role within the surgery. I’ve worked in a surgery for three years and have not seen much blood but then again, I deal with medications. The most invasive procedure I have administered is giving immunisation vaccines such as the flu jab, shingles or pneumonia vaccine. Some people don’t bleed at all when having their jab whereas others can bleed a little.

      Lydia assists one of the GPs with a minor surgery clinic which involves doing minor operations such as removing skin lesions, ingrown toenails or lancing boils. I’ll see if she is able to give you more details about that sort of work.

      We also have healthcare assistants (HCAs) who take blood samples to check for things like blood sugar levels, cholesterol, anaemia, thyroid hormone levels or look at the performance of the liver and kidney. This can also be done by nurses or GPs but often it is quicker and easier for them to do what they do best and leave the blood tests to the HCAs. Different tests require different amounts of blood but generally it is no more than a couple of vials.

    • Photo: Riverside Surgery

      Riverside Surgery answered on 30 Jan 2019:

      No really, only when people come in with accidents ,say broken glass has cut a finger or part of the hand.

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