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Just For Fun


Brenda K Hutson

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On a lighter note, back in my chem days we were having a problem with a 24 hour urine collection. It came down 3 times, all significantly less than a 24 hour collection. When we talked to the doc, he said with a totally straight face "The patient can't hold it for 24 hours."

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Ha!

My first job after college as a "real" MT was graveyards also--by myself I might add

I was working in @ a 250 bed hospital. There was one Tech (me) and one phlebotomist scheduled overnights. If my Phlebotomist was elsewhere collecting specimens when ER called for service, I would try to collect the specimens myself. I will NEVER forget the time I tried to collect a blood specimen on a..um..very well practiced IV drug abuser. After probably 10 minutes of looking for a viable vein she finally said "Give me the syringe...I'll just draw it for you". She then proceeded to collect the blood from behind her knee!!

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Yeah really, I was nervous when I got my first IV in my hand! I guess if you're a drug abuser though you'd know where to get into your own veins.

Yep! No one can obtain a blood specimen on a "well practiced" drug abuser better than they can.

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Sounds like alot more fun. I don't get to be off work long enough to participate in this year's baking, but my children are old enough to cook on their own now. My daughter (19) plans to give everyone on her list baked goods because she is short on money. She came to my husband and me with her list of required ingredients and the sad eye look. "This is what you will need for your stock when I am done with my baking..." We, of course, paid for the groceries.

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I am sitting in my sister's home in Chicago with all of my family, watching it snow like crazy, just browsing around on the computer until we pull out the next meal of tasty leftovers and organize another pinochle group. What a blessing to be relaxing together. If we had to pay a fare for laughter, we'd all be broke right now! Life is good!

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I am sitting in my sister's home in Chicago with all of my family, watching it snow like crazy, just browsing around on the computer until we pull out the next meal of tasty leftovers and organize another pinochle group. What a blessing to be relaxing together. If we had to pay a fare for laughter, we'd all be broke right now! Life is good!

That is fantastic!

:D:D:D:D:D

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My daughter from Chicago came to visit me here in Florida, where it is currently 73 degrees.

Have to mention.....I have a thing about spelling. One of my lab managers consistently spells congratulations as "congradulations"; spells separate as "seperate"....drives me nuts! He also refers to himself as "myself", as in "If you have any questions, see XXX or myself"

I was in the storeroom the other day and came upon a box that was labeled "Misc Testes". Being the curious type, I looked inside. It was a box of papers documenting miscellaneous TESTS! What a disappointment.

Happy New Year everyone. Here's to more laughter in 2010!

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I guess this might fit here. It's not something spontaneous but was rather planned. I don't know if practical jokes are the rule in other parts of the world on April 1st but they are kind of expected here in the US. On April 1, one of my co-workers in the cytogenetics lab had a message to call Dr. Byrd about obtaining blood for chromosomes on Baby Katz. In and of itself, not very unusual since we frequently received chromosome analysis requests for newborns with ambiguous genitalia. The part that he didn't catch was that the phone number wasn't one of the usual in-hospital numbers. In fact, it was the phone number for a local pet shop. The entire lab had contrived reasons to be near the phone when he made the call. The conversation was great. Something along the lines of:

Shop: Cantrell pet shop

Lab: May I speak to Dr. Byrd?

Shop: Sorry there's no doctor here.

Lab: Sorry, must have dialed the wrong number

Lab: Looks again at the note and dials the number again

Shop: Cantrell pet shop

Lab: May I speak to Dr Byrd

Shop: Look, there's no Dr Byrd here

Lab: (Confused and looking again at the note) Are you sure? Dr Byrd wants to get some blood from Baby Katz.

Shop: Do you know who you just called? We have birds and we have baby cats but you're not getting any blood from any kitten!

Lab: (in a rather excited voice) What in the world are you talking about? Who said anything about kittens?

Shop: (Laughing) Let's think about this. You called a pet shop and it's April Fool's Day....

About this time, the light dawned, the lab feel apart in laughter and the victim joined in the laughter. He's a great sport and later plotted and executed well deserved revenge on another day!

I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year. Thanks for some great laughs and really good information on this board.

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Many, many years ago as a young sailor, new to the world of Pathology I was being taught how to collect a sample of blood. One of my solo afternoons as the duty phlebotomist I had a very beautiful, young, oriental lady come to have a blood sample to be collected.

And in my young nonchalant way said to the young lady if she minded rolling up a sleeve and making herself comfortable.

I turned my back to prepare the required bottles, needle and appropriate sized, when I turned around I was ………………dumbstruck, mesmerised and went quite red as this young lady couldn't roll up a sleeve of her long tight oriental dress, and so had removed the dress completely, and to make herself comfortable lay on the bed.

I was more shocked than she!:eek:

Which brings another scenario to mind. Early days of HIV and our Sea Lords in their Ivory Towers issued an edict to phlebotomy staff. When collecting blood from a suspected HIV positive patient then where suitable garments, overshoes, trousers, Disposable button up smock above white coat down up to the neck, gloves mask and goggles.

The first line of the actual procedure said†reassure the patientâ€!:rolleyes:

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I worked in a lab in Texas where we had trouble with a doctor who brought open food into the lab. The microbiology manager got tired of it and when the doctor came in chewing on an apple and asking about a culture, he handed him the plate. The doctor looked at the (open) culture in his right hand and the apple in his left hand, threw out the apple and never again returned to the lab with open food.

There's one win for the good guys!

:clap:

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i worked in a lab in texas where we had trouble with a doctor who brought open food into the lab. The microbiology manager got tired of it and when the doctor came in chewing on an apple and asking about a culture, he handed him the plate. The doctor looked at the (open) culture in his right hand and the apple in his left hand, threw out the apple and never again returned to the lab with open food.

There's one win for the good guys!

:clap:

nice!

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One of my more favorite pranks for a new staff member was the old "apple juice in the urine container" followed by the taste test for glucose. Always good for a laugh or two.

One of my favorite stories is the "new kid on the block" who was presented with a stool specimen. The seasoned Tech proceeded to take this specimen and "test" it by taking a bite out of it!!!! It was a Snickers bar!!!:D:D:D:D

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In my early years we were accepting patients to prtoduce samples for "male infertility tests". We gave a very young Iranian Navy Cadet a "Sterilin" urine sample container.

He asked if anyone could give him a hand! :cries:

We offered hime a few "local" magazines and 15 minutes later he came back very carefully carrying his container as if it was liquid gold!

He had managed to leave the sample in the reverse end of the contaioner, that looked like an inverted V and had placed the lid over the top! How one will nebver know!

We found this just wierd! :eek:

So we gave hime another pot and said try again! He never did come back!:)

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I still hanker after the days when each ABO type had its own coloured label, and the print colour of the written RhD type depended on whether it was positive or negative.

:(:(:(:(

When I started working Blood Bank fulltime, the institution where I was employed used the different color index cards to match the patients' blood types for the card file! It was rather pretty when checking out histories. We couldn't get it through the secretary's head that AB's are pretty rare and we really didn't need the same number of those cards as the rest. When we got rid of the card file, we had tons of those specific cards. Now I can't remember all of the colors......O = blue, A = yellow, B = pink, and AB = white?

Thanks for that memory, Malcolm!

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