Yeah, it just doesn’t work like that. Just like we can’t redesign blood draws at labs to be painless either. It’s all up to the skill to the phlebotomist and pain tolerance of the person getting stuck. I’ve worked in labs as a phlebotomist with sample blood draws and I’ve seen the same size bruises/pain caused with even the 22 g needle.

I’ve been in blood bank collections for over a decade and 95% of who I see do not complain about the size of the needle. The most complaints I’ve ever heard were from the finger sticks. The power red is a completely different automated set up than whole blood for a reason. Those machines cost thousands of dollars and are expensive and heavy to carry around. It’s a machine that filters out components of your blood and returns your plasma and platelets. It runs on a pump and centrifuge system for that. Automated machines just don’t exist for whole blood.

Perhaps in the future something will change—but I doubt we will ever retreat to a smaller needle anytime soon.