i want your blood!

manintheboat@lj got me thinking about drawing blood -- uh, phlebotomy, not justice by other means -- and the idea of having phlebotomy reviews on the usual review services (gügle, yêlp). this seems like a great idea: lots of people seem to have "difficult veins" that are difficult to get blood from... and there also seem to be better and worse phlebotomists, since some people can draw blood from the difficult kids without turning them into pincushions.

parts of this seem straightforward: it's pretty easy to say that phlebotomist P had success rate S in getting blood outta their patients on the first try. but after that, it seems to slip into subjectivity: how bad did it hurt? how "difficult" are somebody's veins? but there may be ways of measuring those objectively, or finding good proxies for them. that would make the reviews more useful than "♥♥♥½ would get poked again!".

where i'd really like to go would be improving medical training so the problem becomes a non-issue... or a situation no worse than most phlebotomists can strike oil on most people on the first try. i've got some ideas for objective measures already, and some vague notions on training, so it's time to hit the literature and talk to happy_dr_friend@lj about YA study.