Just For Fun

[jcdayaz]

My first job in a hospital was graveyard ER Admissions clerk while going to college. We were close to the less savory parts of town and we saw a number a patients from there. Anyway, one night we had a gentleman in who happened to be deaf in his right ear and blind in his left eye and well in to his drink. To talk to him I had to stand on the left side and lean over to his right so he could hear and see me at the same time.

Oh my, John. Sounds like a fun scenerio to me. Almost like the time I was performing phlebotomy on a very "practiced" drug abuser who essentially had no veins left. I tried twice, missed both times of course, and then she grabbed the syringe with needle and drew her own blood from behind one of her knees!!

It took me several minutes to realize what had just happened..that's how stunned I was by it. I guess the "good" drug abusers know where they still have a usable vein. :eek::eek:

How scary is that?????

[tbostock]

My first job in a hospital was graveyard ER Admissions clerk while going to college. We were close to the less savory parts of town and we saw a number a patients from there. Anyway, one night we had a gentleman in who happened to be deaf in his right ear and blind in his left eye and well in to his drink. To talk to him I had to stand on the left side and lean over to his right so he could hear and see me at the same time.

Reminds me of an elderly gentleman that I had gone to draw some blood for in the ICU. There was a sign over his bed "I am blind". I made sure I announced my presence so I wouldn't startle him. Then his nurse walked in yelling "HELLO MR SMITH!!! LOOKS LIKE THE LAB IS HERE TO DRAW YOUR BLOOD!!!. I'm thinking "why in the world is she yelling?". The patient says, "for God's sake woman, can't you read the sign, it says I'm blind, I'm not deaf."

I had to try SO HARD not to laugh out loud.

[jcdayaz]

A number of years ago while working second shift I was in the emergency department drawing blood from a "young" lady 103 years of age. We had been talking and she had very sharp hearing, vision, and wits. While I was collecting the specimen from her, the ER physician walked in and immediately raised his voice to address her speaking very slowly and in short simple sentences as if addressing someone with hearing difficulties and having memory problems as well. I ducked by head hiding a smile as this lady was a pistol. She looked over at me, raising an eyebrow before looking at the physician and stating in a quiet voice, "Doctor, I am neither deaf, nor a 5 year old child." "If we are going to get along I would appreciate it if you would speak to me in normal tones in regular sentences." The physician to his credit stopped short, smiled, and said "let's start over and try again." With that he left the room closing the door, knocked and stepped in introducing himself at a normal conversational level. He asked her if she was feeling OK today and how could he help her. With a twinkle in her eye she said she would not be in the ER if she were feeling well, and he could get on with the exam as she had other things to do at home. I couldn't help but to laugh at the reply as did the physician. Never assume.

This is a GREAT STORY!! Thanks for sharing it.

This scenerio should be a lesson to us ALL in the healthcare field. Unfortunately, we all too often stereotype patients based on what we perceive their strengths/weaknesses will be.

BIG APPLAUSE is deserved to that DR who left the room and started over.

What a GREAT life-lesson this is for us all also. Recognize when you mess-up---the DR in this case, and make it right--- like it sounds like he/she did.

Another big applause for that DR!!!!

[jcdayaz]

Loved the bubbling dry ice - I think we did it one time too many times creating a crack in the sink:redface:

And we also used to have "saline fights"- my best was once crawling under the bench and squirting warm saline onto a collegues sock to see how long it took for him to reqister. I used to keep a small umbrella close by for protection. Ahhh the good old days when you could work hard AND play hard

We still work hard and PLAY hard. It is not an infrequent experience for one of us to shoot a rubberband at another and/or throw a rubber stopper out of some sort of control vial at another person. No biologically hazardous projectiles are used obiviously, and it really makes for a less stressful environment. Is it correct practice? Of course not...but sometimes you improvise for sanity's sake..

[Deny Morlino]

Is it correct practice? Of course not...but sometimes you improvise for sanity's sake..

Amen!!! Stressful enough job description without a mandate of all work and no play.

[John C. Staley]

There was a time in the distant past when the laboratory ETOH was NOT denatured. My fisrt lab had a Christmas tradition, mostly do to an MT who was going to med school at the time. He would mix a batch of "punch" and keep it in the chemistry reagent fridge. Usually a mixture of orange juice and laboratory grade ETOH. No one ever over indulged but, that, was generally a happy couple of weeks with a very high Christmas spirit.

[Dr. Pepper]

We are in the process of updating our surgical consent form (the informed consent for transfusion needed fleshing out). We have a change of document form that needs to be signed off by several of the powers that be. I faxed over to the chief of staff MD the change form, a cover letter explaining the revision, and a sample of the new surgical consent form. He signed, dated and faxed back the surgical consent form.

[jeanne.wall]

There was a time in the distant past when the laboratory ETOH was NOT denatured. My fisrt lab had a Christmas tradition, mostly do to an MT who was going to med school at the time. He would mix a batch of "punch" and keep it in the chemistry reagent fridge. Usually a mixture of orange juice and laboratory grade ETOH. No one ever over indulged but, that, was generally a happy couple of weeks with a very high Christmas spirit.

Your story reminded me of “Bence Jones Protein,†not the urine test – the drink! Many years ago it was a favorite of laboratorians and lab students, alike. It was made with grapefruit juice, “lab stock†ETOH or vodka (in a pinch) and served in a glass urine specimen jar. Looked just like a positive Bence Jones result.

They probably don't even do the test by that method any longer, but I'm sure if you use your imagination you can picture the result, even if you can't smell it in your head like I can - I'm sitting here wrinkling my nose at the thought! I bet there are folks reading this, that have never seen a glass specimen jar but I worked my way through college washing them along with test tubes, pipettes and all the other things you use to need to make a clinical laboratory work. I learned a lot those summers.

John you made my day! I hadn't thought of those times in years. Thanks, Jeanne

[dherbert]

Walking into a darkroom to read some platelet antibody tests and sitting down on a chair flooded with warm saline, or worse having plastic vials containing dry ice pop their caps under your chair in the dark. Or maybe it's the day my "friends" got every timer in the lab to go off within a minute or so and every single one of them was hidden somewhere, one of them even inside a light box - those were the days

Denise

[BrianD]

a reference lab i worked at did semen analyses for an IVF clinic. most would arrive early Saturday A.M. and the responsibility for completing them was assigned on a rotating schedule. one particular saturday none was submitted and we thought that a terrible shame because the gal scheduled to do them always finagled other folks into helping her complete them. we had happened to get a new handsoap that looked like ejaculate. so, we filled a couple dozen specimen cups and generated false requisitions (easy since the clinic wasn't interfaced and everything was submitted on down-time reqs.) the look on her face when the courier dropped off several full cartons of specimens was priceless. she actually "counted 3" of them before she noticed the strong lemon-lavender smell of soap and began to notice that the clients had names like "I.P. Frehley" or worse.

Edited July 7, 2010 by BrianD
keeping it from being too "blue"

[jcdayaz]

There was a time in the distant past when the laboratory ETOH was NOT denatured. My fisrt lab had a Christmas tradition, mostly do to an MT who was going to med school at the time. He would mix a batch of "punch" and keep it in the chemistry reagent fridge. Usually a mixture of orange juice and laboratory grade ETOH. No one ever over indulged but, that, was generally a happy couple of weeks with a very high Christmas spirit.

And not one of you ever sampled said "Very high Christmas Spirit"!! Do you think any of us are buying your story John?? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[John C. Staley]

And not one of you ever sampled said "Very high Christmas Spirit"!! Do you think any of us are buying your story John?? :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I never said no one ever sampled. I said no one ever over indulged. That means no one ever fell down and had to be carried to the donor bed!!!

:giggle::giggle:

[jcdayaz]

I never said no one ever sampled. I said no one ever over indulged. That means no one ever fell down and had to be carried to the donor bed!!!

:giggle::giggle:

hahahaha! I just arrived home last night from a 10 day vacation (Malcolm might call it a "Holiday"). I had to be carried a couple times to a bed! Oh well, work hard, PLAY HARD!!!! That motto has gotten me through life. :D:D

Back to work tomorrow. ICK!!!:mad:

[jcdayaz]

a reference lab i worked at did semen analyses for an IVF clinic. most would arrive early Saturday A.M. and the responsibility for completing them was assigned on a rotating schedule. one particular saturday none was submitted and we thought that a terrible shame because the gal scheduled to do them always finagled other folks into helping her complete them. we had happened to get a new handsoap that looked like ejaculate. so, we filled a couple dozen specimen cups and generated false requisitions (easy since the clinic wasn't interfaced and everything was submitted on down-time reqs.) the look on her face when the courier dropped off several full cartons of specimens was priceless. she actually "counted 3" of them before she noticed the strong lemon-lavender smell of soap and began to notice that the clients had names like "I.P. Frehley" or worse.

This is another great story! We once played a practical joke on a fellow co-worker who, if I were honest, none of us liked. We got Security involved...planned it all out, etc. We placed in his personal drawer a small zip-loc bag with powdered sugar in it. None of us knew what actual cocaine might look like and that's the best we could come up with. Anyway, we called our security friend after we put the powdered sugar in his drawer and the officer came and did a "random inspection". Well, guess what? He pretended that he had found cocaine in the drawer. The Tech went Ballistic!!! Although a very mean prank..a lesson he apparently took to heart! He was much more tolerable after that.

[jeanne.wall]

Back to work tomorrow. ICK!!!:mad:

:raincloud

Isn't it too bad we have to work so hard to afford the vacations!

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

I felt an original paper coming on this morning when I saw what was written on the request form for one of our referred samples.

"DiaMed IAT and enzyme technique; possible anti-M showing dosage."

Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, my hopes were dashed when we found that the anti-M did not react by enzyme technique!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:eek::eek:

[Dr. Pepper]

Malcolm, speaking of things that were not entirely unexpectedly absent, years ago I took my daughter to our pediatrician. She was having stomach cramps. The doctor asked for a urine sample, then proceded to put a drop of the raw urine on a slide, cover it with a cover slip, and look at it through a monocular microscope that might have dated from the late 1800s. "There's nothing there", he announced. I told him "I'm not surprised, in my lab we centrifuge the urine and remove the supernatant which concentrates it 10,000 times and gives you a fighting chance of seeing something in there." He gave me the stink-eye. I found a new pediatrician.

[jcdayaz]

Malcolm, speaking of things that were not entirely unexpectedly absent, years ago I took my daughter to our pediatrician. She was having stomach cramps. The doctor asked for a urine sample, then proceded to put a drop of the raw urine on a slide, cover it with a cover slip, and look at it through a monocular microscope that might have dated from the late 1800s. "There's nothing there", he announced. I told him "I'm not surprised, in my lab we centrifuge the urine and remove the supernatant which concentrates it 10,000 times and gives you a fighting chance of seeing something in there." He gave me the stink-eye. I found a new pediatrician.

Good thing. I wouldn't have taken my dog back to that pediatrician.

[jeanne.wall]

Malcolm, speaking of things that were not entirely unexpectedly absent, years ago I took my daughter to our pediatrician. She was having stomach cramps. The doctor asked for a urine sample, then proceded to put a drop of the raw urine on a slide, cover it with a cover slip, and look at it through a monocular microscope that might have dated from the late 1800s. "There's nothing there", he announced. I told him "I'm not surprised, in my lab we centrifuge the urine and remove the supernatant which concentrates it 10,000 times and gives you a fighting chance of seeing something in there." He gave me the stink-eye. I found a new pediatrician.

This was during the hay day of the physician office labs - I remember when a chemistry tech had decided to “jump ship†for a physician’s office lab – great hours and no weekends and holidays. He was back in just a few weeks. When he arrived he found all the reagents in drawers, not the refrigerated storage as required. He asked about getting a refrigerator and replacing the reagents that had been stored incorrectly. They said No, it was too expensive, and the same went for control reagents as well! Who needs them, right? I bet the doctor still thinks that CLIA was unfair. Needless to see the few folks in the lab that were going to that office switched in short order.

[jcdayaz]

This was during the hay day of the physician office labs - I remember when a chemistry tech had decided to “jump ship†for a physician’s office lab – great hours and no weekends and holidays. He was back in just a few weeks. When he arrived he found all the reagents in drawers, not the refrigerated storage as required. He asked about getting a refrigerator and replacing the reagents that had been stored incorrectly. They said No, it was too expensive, and the same went for control reagents as well! Who needs them, right? I bet the doctor still thinks that CLIA was unfair. Needless to see the few folks in the lab that were going to that office switched in short order.

I won't deny having been tempted to "jump ship" to a physician's office lab before. I have two young boys and the hours and no weekends/holidays sound appealing. However, I am not willing to work in a lab that is unsafe/not following and/or exceeding protocol, etc etc. It's just not worth it. I'll take my weekends/holidays over a physician's office any day!!!!

[jcdayaz]

Walking into a darkroom to read some platelet antibody tests and sitting down on a chair flooded with warm saline, or worse having plastic vials containing dry ice pop their caps under your chair in the dark. Or maybe it's the day my "friends" got every timer in the lab to go off within a minute or so and every single one of them was hidden somewhere, one of them even inside a light box - those were the days

Denise

I am going to use the timer idea one day! Fellow coworkers--BEWARE!!!! That is a great one!!!!!:D:D:D:D

[Deny Morlino]

A couple of years ago we had a blizzard keeping almost the entire day shift staff in the lab from reporting to work. I was one of the few brave enough (read "stupid/dedicated") to come in. It was a quiet morning as one would expect given the weather situation until about 0900. At that point an outpatient arrived and presented to registration. The order: prenatal workup . The patient had spent over an hour driving 18 miles during declared emergencies to have a prenatal workup performed. When the phlebotomy staff asked her what had made her decide to brave the elements her reply was, "I hate to have to wait in line and figured the lines would be short today." :eek::rolleyes::confused:. You cannot ever second guess what patients will do.

[Deny Morlino]

This one is a bit sad as it reflects on society today, but amusing at the same time.

A little girl of about 4 came into the emergency department with several bumps and scrapes. Both of her parents were with her. The ER physician asked the girl several times throughout the visit how she had become injured. Each time she told him that she had fallen down while playing. When he asked her the same question for the fourth time she gave him a strange look and said,"I told you stupid, I fell down!" At that point with both parents completely mortified at the response from the girl the ER doctor said in reply while chuckling, "I guess I had that one coming!" We have reasons for the protocols that are in place, but sometimes we must seem very dumb to the children we care for in the medical profession.

[wsbmt]

Magnum,

Thoroughly enjoyed your response to the constant badgering for results (ie calling them back each hour). Will have to remember this for future reference. Will be quite ueful!

wsbmt

Edited July 11, 2010 by wsbmt

[jeanne.wall]

A couple of years ago we had a blizzard keeping almost the entire day shift staff in the lab from reporting to work. I was one of the few brave enough (read "stupid/dedicated") to come in. It was a quiet morning as one would expect given the weather situation until about 0900. At that point an outpatient arrived and presented to registration. The order: prenatal workup . The patient had spent over an hour driving 18 miles during declared emergencies to have a prenatal workup performed. When the phlebotomy staff asked her what had made her decide to brave the elements her reply was, "I hate to have to wait in line and figured the lines would be short today." :eek::rolleyes::confused:. You cannot ever second guess what patients will do.

After 30+ years of working in Vermont, I’m not surprise what the bad weather brings – 2 or 3 feet of wet snow and the lab staff all dragging in late. Guess who is in the waiting room,

· first visit prenatals, in their third trimester - yah, after their center of balance changes so they aren’t so stable on their feet;

· and Protime patients, just the folks that should be out shoveling heavy wet snow and slogging through the snow banks.

You never have someone coming in for a critical diagnosis, acute illness, nothing like that, just the folks that could have waited for tomorrow and better weather. This is not an anomaly; it is some kind of rule. I've just never found out whose. It is nice to know that it isn’t location related Deny! Now I know it is universal.