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Thanks to a very generous invitation from the organisers (in particular Phil Hoffman, aka Dr Pepper on this site, and Maddie Josephs, Chair) I will be attending and speaking at the 69th Annual Clinical Laboratory Science Convention - Central New England (ASCLS - CNE) taking place at the Rhode Island Convention Center between May 9th and May 11th 2017. I will be talking on Wednesday 10th May 2017, giving a lecture entitled, "An In Depth Description of the Kell Blood Group System." and then, after a well-deserved break for the delegates, and for those that can stand it, a second lecture entitled, "King Henry Viii, McLeod Syndrome, Chronic Granulomatous Disease and Kx." Sorry if this comes across as being "big headed", but I am really excited about coming back over to the USA.

Yay, the Christmas lights are back! Smash 'em while you can!!

Love the Christmas lights! Thank you for the great therapy!!

We reported the patient as a weak D positive patient. Due to cost cutting we no longer have a different Anti D sera on site. We use the same reagents on the ECHO and for Tube typing. That is why I was concerned when we were able to pick up the D in tube testing using the same lot number of Anti-D typing sera and we did not even see a ? on the original ECHO run. We are a community hospital and most of the time there are no problems. Cost vs Benefit indicates the few patients that have typing problems are more cost effective to send out for resolution. Gone are the days we can do our own work ups I'm afraid. In this case it was safe to call the patient Rh negative for transfusion purposes. Since she is prenatal the physician can order molecular studies to get a more accurate picture. Thanks for all of your help. Some great ideas!

Genesis BPS also make a couple of different tube sealers. I currently have a benchtop and a portable model

Terumo also makes a T-Seal... which might meet your need, it can be linked together (multiple devices with a single power source) to do a full line of segments in a single action which is quite handy if you're looking to do that too.

Disturbingly addictive.....

If I understand it correctly, the lab tested an eluate that they had made against reagent A1 and B cells and it was negative; and the reference cetre tested the donor cells - with an eluate that they had made or with the eluate that the lab had made? I suspect they made their own eluate....Could be down to a difference in method for the elution. Also - from the same sample or a different sample?

Technically, its not "necessary" to do either.... But to answer your question: No. A patient who has developed anti-E has a high chance a having been exposed to the c antigen. That is why "some practitioners" recommend typing for c, and if the patient is negative, giving c- and E- units even if the anti-c is not present. This practice is not a requirement! The same is not true for a patient who has anti-c; the chance of being exposed to the E antigen are less, so this situation is not treated in the same manner.

The trend at least in NY State is to have only MTs in the Blood Bank because we do high complexity testing. However, in my years of experience, I've had MLTs that were great Blood Bankers and MTs that are terrible at it so it really depends if someone has critical thinking skills and attention to detail or not.

Change things as in? From my experience, a persons understanding, willing to learn, and pro-activeness is dependent on the person and not whether they are a MLT or MT.