donellda

Hi Shily. I think that your English is very good. Are you interested in doing an ASCP certification or do just want more general Blood Bank knowledge? There are correspondence courses and online courses that you can take. I believe that the AABB offers online courses and the ASCP has a lot of Blood Bank education material available. I received a pamphlet from Rush University a few weeks ago about an online SBB course with credits that can be applied to a Masters in Health Care Management. I am from Canada and I used to take courses from the Michener Institute in Toronto.

We only do weak D testing on Rh negative babies born to Rh negative mothers. I think that the current line of thinking is that a mom could still form anti-D even if she is a weak D variant so we stopped doing the weak D test on moms and now just focus on the babies.

The only product we issue in a cooler is RBCs and this is only in the case of traumas. Our OR has monitored refrigerators for RBCs. If they require platelets they must pick them up when they are ready to be transfused.

I love the walkin. The only problem with ours is that it is getting old, however, we have had fewer problems with our walkin than our double door.

We have a walkin fridge for the storage of our inventory. It's pretty old so I'm not sure what vendor you could check with. Ours is cooled by water so if the water pressure drops we are in trouble. We do have another blood bank refrigerator for our crossmatched blood that we can use as a back up. I'm off for a few days so I will look to see who the manufacturer of our walkin is on Wednesday.

Hi Lisa!

I actually new that the quote was from the movie "Airplane" but I was under such stress at thought of my pending inspection that I just sat curled up in a ball in my room until it was all over:p. Anyway, it went okay. A few minor things, one of them being a nursing issue, another one being the fact that my thermometer calibration was done a bit late due to some staffing issues but all in all we did good.:cool: Next time I will pay more attention to the movie trivia. Afterall, it is more fun anyway:D

It will be interesting to find out what it is. I haven't used gel for a few years but we had one OB patient that had an Anti-E and the pattern in gel was very odd. It looked like a single line of cells done the edge of the gel column with a small button at the bottom. I thought it was just a contaminant also but we did a panel and sure enough it was anti-E. Gel opens up some new findings. Our health system will be starting gel sometime this summer. I'm looking forward to using it once again:cool:

Our inspectors showed up at the Core Lab today:eek:. My lab director called me and said they were on their way but she wasn't sure to where. I wanted to run out of the building:cries:. Today was just not the day for them to walk in. Luckily they stayed downtown however, we can expect a visit on Wednesday:confused:.

There has been some discussion between our blood bank group leaders and our quality specialist about the use of sterile connecting devices and hemostats. Some of the hospitals use hemostats on either side of the weld in case the weld fails. Some feel that if the weld fails that unit would be saved by the hemostat and that the unit would not have to have the expiration changed to 24 hours because this would still be considered a closed system if the connection is repeated successfully. The quality specialist pointed out that this may still be an open system even with the presence of the hemostat sealing the unit off at the time of the weld. Does anyone have any experience involving this type of situation?

Hi Janet! I'm glad you introduced yourself! Sand and surf sounds good to me about now:) I'm looking forward to hearing more from you. Take care!

Well with all this inspection talk, I'm guessing that we had more fun at our lab. Here is something that we did to one of our coworkers who attended a yoga class and pulled every muscle in her body. Please view the attachment for some more fun:cool: TheYogaMasterEffect2.doc

Sometimes those biker bars are the best ones!

I think that what you are seeing is the threads that you have subscribed to (usually ones that you have posted in). These will be highlighted in green. Threads that you have not posted in will appear in blue (or whatever color of the skin that you have chosen).

I'm not sure what you are seeing but my guess is that you are looking at the green "Online" next to a forum members name when they are online. This is an indicator that allows other members to see who is currently online. If this is not what you are seeing let us know.

Sounds like fun:p

Lab week is this week:clap: Is your hospital or organization doing anything special to celebrate? We have something planned for every day. Monday is a big kickoff breakfast. In the past the managers cooked breakfast. This year they are supplying meat and everyone is bringing a little something. Tuesday is "Green Day" and we will have a healthy salad bar. The resident fitness guru (that's me) will do a standing abs workout for everyone:strong:. Wednesday is our lab lunch. The hospital will be supplying a lunch from Subway for everyone. Thursday is "Tiki Bar" day. Two of the supervisors will become bar tenders and serve "non alcoholic" versions of drinks:cool:. We did this last year and it was definitely a big hit. Friday is an international pot luck where everyone brings in a dish based on their ethnic orientation. I am so mixed as far as ethnicity, I will just bring in something "Canadian". We have some really different games planned for this year also. One of the managers will actually be getting a pie in the face:eek:. They have, of course, already agreed to this. It should be a fun week as long as our work load allows it to be fun:confused:. Hope everyone else has a fun week planned!

Hi John. I have been having the same problem when I log in to BBTalk from work but at home I have no problem. Maybe it has something to do with the systems at the hospitals. I use a Citrix desktop at work and I sometimes have problems accessing some of the sites that I need. Cliff might have more insight when he sees this.

I remember my first post on an online forum. I was a bit hesitant but I evolved so much that I became a moderator for 2 different online forums, this forum being one of them. You are doing just fine! Happy posting!

We simply do not issue blood until we have 2 typings done by 2 different technologists if we have no previous history.

Hi Shily! Welcome to Bloodbanktalk! I have enjoyed reading your posts. Thanks for telling us more about you.

Hi! Welcome to Bloodbanktalk!

Where do you document this? DO you document thhis on specimen label?? Are your specimen label handwritten?? We used to have 2 people identify the patient up until about a year ago. When we did this, the person who drew the sample signed the sample and the paperwork accompanying the sample and the person who identified the patient also signed both the sample and paperwork.

The most important thing is patient safety. However, we approach the goal is dictated by who we work for. So there will be many methods of achieving the same goal.

Hi Janet! Welcome to Bloodbanktalk!