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Thank you Malcolm, but no worries. Certainly nothing to disturb a fellow retired BB. I only threw the topic out there to see if any previous members of SCARF were out there to share some stories with this group. I wish I would have kept my SCARF membership list when I retired. I recall several of the stateside British Mafia BBs being on the list. Plus I think there were a few other countries represented. Maybe Wolfgang Dahr in Germany, but that may have been a separate request for something more specific. It may be that more regulations and costs came around to interfere with sharing sam

We just got a brand new Hettich and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to program it so that it is easy to switch between 15 seconds and 45 seconds of spin time. There is a manual with it , but it's so complicated to me that I just can't figure it out.

For all I have said above, and I think I have said this before on here, when I was first working in Red Cell Reference, when the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory was in London, and the Department was run by Carolyn Giles and a very young Senior Technician by the name of Joyce Poole, I also had the problem of seeing "weak agglutination" that wasn't actually there (totally negative, in other words), and Joyce coined this as a "Malcolm Weak". This was way back in the early 1970's. I understand that, now and again, some 50 years on, the term is still used in the department for ove

Since we have both manual procedures and QC and automated procedures and QC, we have left our manual QC with just the recommended "positive" controls. Since the ECHO runs 3 QC reagents and winds up with a "positive" and a "negative" for all of the reagents (usually the same lot numbers in both sets) we thought that was enough. We are FDA and Joint Comm. and they have been happy so far.

To answer the original question - we use "mi" and the computer interprets that as "positive" and we can choose our "weak positive" answer. Works for us. Yes ,we still read the occasional tube under the scope - still in the tube and rolling the tube. Everything else is on the Immucor ECHO - eliminates the problem! Weak DATs on cord bloods are sometimes found - never know how that works out for the infant. Reading Fetal Hgb Screens requires microscopic reading - you never see the positives in the optical aids (convex mirrors). We try to keep it to noticeable agglutination/clump

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Within my own laboratory (Immunohaematology Reference Laboratory NHSBT-Tooting Centre), one of my senior staff, Alan Gray, was the designated member of SCARF. Unfortunately, Alan has retired and, as I understand, is now in poor health. I will try to see what has happened, but do not want to cause him any difficulties.

I see there has been quite a few views but no comments. Sooooo.... the S.C.A.R.F. group (Serum, Cells, And, Rare, Fluids) would share samples of interesting cases they had investigated. Each person would send out one sample to each of the other members in the group once a year. Everyone benefited by having a rare samples from which they could freeze aliquots. These would be available for aiding in future investigations of challenging patient specimens sent to their Immunohematology Reference Lab. At the time I was a member, I believe John Moulds was whom monitored the group I was invo

We have one that is pretty easy and used by all departments I will try to attach to this answer.BBWS - 112a competency day.docx BBWS - 112b competency evenings night.docx

Sorry, my apologies - wrong end of the stick!

I meant a Canadian thing to not do it.

Have you thought of hiding his glasses?

What about in gel if one tech swears they see very weak agglutination (grainy) at the bottom of the well but no one else sees it? We have one tech I swear has magnifiers in his glasses!

True, but, for those unfamiliar with it, the agglutination seen with an anti-Sda is usually mixed-field (see the attached photograph - not a fantastic photograph, but I have "tarted it up" a bit - from the original paper, Macvie SI, Morton JA, Pickles MM. The Reactions and Inheritance of a New Blood Group Antigen, Sda. Vox Sang 1967; 13: 485-492).

When I was trained (many years ago!) we used +/- for microscopic tube reactions. Now, I encourage MLT to only use the microscope if they are looking to verify a mixed field or rouleaux. I suppose there could be other rare times to use a microscope - like an anti-Sda? But generally - no microscope. But they love the microscope...

I was originally trained using an "inverted microscope" - that was a thing of beauty. The light source was above, the relatively low-powered lens below. The cells stayed in the tube and the tube could be rotated to get movement and/or a suitable thickness of liquid in which to see the cells. It was great and very easy to use (even though it had a large footprint), but as others have commented, if one looked long enough, one could always find "friendly cells". I'm not a fan of microscopic reading and I dissuade others from doing it. As I've said in the past, high level tools and techniques

Decades ago I worked w a tech who worked w Peter at NYBC. I had always looked under the scope (as that was how I was trained). I'd ask her to look at 2 or 3 or 4 cells stuck together microscopically. Her comment was always, "If you want to call that positive go ahead, but I'd call it negative." High anxiety to give up the scope but I did.

Fine pbaker. No problem with that, but there are some places that, even today, check EVERY apparently negative reaction with a microscope.

This is how our tubes are viewed for micro reactions. Issitt seems to be OK with this method.

A very good day to you Sir Hope you are well. Yes this is second time around for me on PLT... hopefully I can ingratiate myself with the locals

When tube testing was all we had, my moto was; "when in doubt, shake it out!" One of the first things I did as transfusion supervisor at a new facility was convince the medical director that we needed to stop using the microscope for routine testing. It was much harder to convince the rest of the staff. I couldn't remove the microscopes from the department because we were doing KBs at the time and I'm pretty sure a few of the "older" staff still used them for routine testing when I wasn't looking. Once again inertia is proven to be the most powerful force in the universe!

only a reading lamp.

i've used it for ABHHDN for decades.

It isn't. We used it whenever we were looking at a possible ABO HDFN in the Reference Laboratory at NHSBT-Tooting Centre.