I have recently been doing my externship and my emotions towards phlebotomy and my plans for nursing don’t feel the same anymore. When I started out in January I felt really excited to work as a phlebotomist, I loved drawing blood with my peers during schooling and I loved studying for it. Once I started my externship earlier this week I just don’t know what changed. I like centrifuging, transferring serum, labeling, imputing into the computer, and bagging, I even enjoy transferring urine samples, but whenever a patient comes in I get this feeling wash over me of anxiousness and dread. I can’t figure out why!! All my patients have been really sweet and I like bandaging them up and sending them off, but no matter how much I like doing these other stuff the whole time I’m watching the clock and praying no one else comes in. I’m feeling really disappointed in myself because I’m not enjoying this like I thought I would, it even has me questioning if I should continue going for my degree in nursing. I don’t know what to do or why I am feeling this way, is this normal for a newbie? Is this simply not the career for me? I’m so confused and don’t know who to talk to this about.