I went to the nursing home right next to the hospital I work in to do my weekly lab draws. They usually have around 15 patients on the list and each one has to be drawn in their rooms.
A nurse usually comes with to help with patient identification because some of them have really bad confusion and dementia.
My last patient that day was a sweet old lady. She’s really nice and I enjoy having a conversation with her. While I was drawing her blood, the nurse started making small talks with her.
Nurse said to the patient: Do you know that blood is blue before it hits air and then it turns red?
I turned around because I can’t believe what I just heard. I just asked, “What’s that again?”
The nurse repeated what she said earlier about blood being blue before it comes in contact with air, and then it turns red. “Where did you learn that from?” I asked. “Nursing school”, she replied.
I can’t believe what I just heard. I have to explain to her that if what she said was true, then the blood in my vacuum tubes would be blue because it has never come in contact with air. And of course it looks pretty red to both of us.
I still can’t imagine what led her to believe that blood is blue before it comes in contact with air. This better not be something they really teach in nursing schools!
Submitted by:
Rodney Lopez
Laboratory Technician
Florida, USA
She must be a smurf!!🤪
She possibly believed that because the veins on your arms appear blue.
I wouldn’t doubt that XD Maybe she was thinking of those charts that show arteries as blue, and veins as red for the sake of comparison, not an actual representation of the real thing color-wise