Phlebotomists are specialist or medical support workers who take blood samples from patients, more commonly in hospital, for testing in laboratories.  The results of the tests are important basis of diagnosing illness as well as providing the appropriate intervention.  As a phlebotomist, your responsibilities, basically, would consist of explaining the procedure to the patients including the purpose of the procedure, reassuring the patients if they are uneasy by utilizing your effective communication skills, inserting a needle into the vein with the least pain possible, drawing off and injecting blood into the tube properly, applying a dressing to the puncture site using the appropriate pressure, labeling the blood samples as to the name of the patient and name of the test to be done, delivering the sample to the laboratory within the institution’s accepted time scale and entering as well as completing the records on the computer such as patient’s name, date when the sample was drawn and the result of the test.  With all these functions, a phlebotomist is required to follow a set of procedures carefully so that blood samples will not be contaminated or mixed up.  Moreover, there is an appropriate procedure for each age group of patients that you must always bear in mind.  A phlebotomist usually works for 40 hours a week or eight hours a day for five days every week.  Some institutions, thought, allow part-time workers who work for lesser time.  They are also required to follow strict policy on safety precautionary procedures like wearing disposable gloves when drawing and handling blood samples and lastly, since you work chiefly in hospital or in a clinical setting, you may need to have the proper immunization in order to prevent yourself from acquiring illnesses as well as avoid nosocomial diseases that may perhaps, affect you’re the patients.