need advice on clean needle sticks, and needle sticks in general.

[stephanie.monaco]

i'm a phlebotomist and the other day while i was with a patient getting everything ready to draw i got a needle stick, but the needle was clean..

i was talking to my patient and as i was going to throw the needle cap away i brought my hand back down to anchor the skin and stuck myself... i immediately capped the needle and threw it away, i don't know if the patient noticed or not. i'm guessing she did bc right when i felt it i said, "oww" and looked under my glove at my palm. i took out a new clean needle and proceeded with the draw. by the end of the draw there was some blood that stained my glove. but i DID NOT touch the patient with that part of my palm, i made sure to be very careful about that.

my question is, should i say anything about it to my co workers or boss? or not worry about it, because it was a clean needle and i threw it away and used a new clean needle on my patient. i'm just worried if the patient saw this happen and get worried and say something to my boss. i don't want to lose my job or get in trouble because of this. because i think i did the right thing by throwing the dirty needle away and using a new clean one on the patient. but i'm still worried because there was blood on my glove...

i've had a needle stick before thankfully that was with a clean needle also, but it didn't bleed. at all.

please if anyone has some advice for me about this it would really help me out so much i've been so worried i just got this job it's my dream job and i don't want to lose it.

[missnurse01, MSN, RN]

The only other thing you could have done was stop, wash your hands, put on a bandaid, and reglove. If you pt didn't see, no biggie. If she did and you didn't do anything for yourself, she might say something. Whether you should tell, I don't know!

[salvadordolly]

i have had a clean stick and a dirty stick. I only reported the dirty stick and got tested etc. I agree with above poster, should've washed and regloved.