Just For Fun

[BrianD]

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.

during Katrina we had some elder-folk come in to have B12/Folate levels drawn because their doc dosed them the day before. this is a peeve of mine.......after the loading dose, it will take several days of some serious pee-ing before they drop low enough to not exceed linearity. oy.

:sarcastic

[Deny Morlino]

Patients are becoming better educated as time goes on. A problem we have run across is a lack of education for patients by the physician and /or office. Some of this occurs because the office has not been educated. Once the office has been educated I feel they are doing the patient a dis-service if the office fails to educate the patient. Just my opinion and .02 worth.

I think there are universal "requirements" for the patients to choose the worst possible weather to come in for general, non-critical lab work. If it is not the worst snowstorm of the winter, then it is the hottest, most humid day of summer .

Patients will be patients though. Had one Friday of last week that was an elderly woman of 88 who fell at about 0200. She waited until 0400 to call her daughter for help since she knew her daughter gets up at 0345 to get ready for work. Long story made short, she arrived at our facility with a 4.6g hemoglobin. We transfused her 7 units of LRBC's over the weekend and she is feeling a bit better now . When her daughter asked why she waited to call her the patient indicated she knew her daughter was sleeping and did not want to disturb her! (And she had a low hemoglobin and was a little bit tired!) People never cease to amaze me with their priorities.

[jeanne.wall]

Patients will be patients though. Had one Friday of last week that was an elderly woman of 88 who fell at about 0200. She waited until 0400 to call her daughter for help since she knew her daughter gets up at 0345 to get ready for work. Long story made short, she arrived at our facility with a 4.6g hemoglobin. We transfused her 7 units of LRBC's over the weekend and she is feeling a bit better now . When her daughter asked why she waited to call her the patient indicated she knew her daughter was sleeping and did not want to disturb her! (And she had a low hemoglobin and was a little bit tired!) People never cease to amaze me with their priorities.

They sure will Deny - I remember a patient that worked in an MD’s office down the hill from the hospital. She was in her early 70's and used to walk up every afternoon, and it was a steep hill too, to pick up reports (guess I’m dating myself there) and drop off any specimens. Doctor thought she was a little pale and suggested she get a blood count, which showed a 2.7 gm hemoglobin! Well, everyone thought she should come right in for a workup and transfusion but she pointed out that it was Thursday afternoon and her son and his family was coming for a visit this weekend and she needed to clean her house and bake cookies. She’d come in for the bone marrow and transfusion next week. And she did! :disbelief

[Deny Morlino]

Um WOW?! :eek: Amazing how the body will adapt.

[Barb Thompson]

I have seen parents bring their kids to the ER at the height of a hurricane (winds gusting to 120 mph or more, no one else out on the streets, emergency vehicles not even going out) because little Mary had been running a fever for 2 days and now they wanted her treated! (We think that it is the parents who are afraid of the storm, and want to be someplace "safer", so they use the kids as an excuse to get in the building)

[JOANBALONE]

They sure will Deny - I remember a patient that worked in an MD’s office down the hill from the hospital. She was in her early 70's and used to walk up every afternoon, and it was a steep hill too, to pick up reports (guess I’m dating myself there) and drop off any specimens. Doctor thought she was a little pale and suggested she get a blood count, which showed a 2.7 gm hemoglobin! Well, everyone thought she should come right in for a workup and transfusion but she pointed out that it was Thursday afternoon and her son and his family was coming for a visit this weekend and she needed to clean her house and bake cookies. She’d come in for the bone marrow and transfusion next week. And she did! :disbelief

Sounds like my mom.

JB

[AMcCord]

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.

The surgical patients who live miles and miles away always make it in, too, even the minor cases that could easily be rescheduled. The surgical cases who don't make it are the ones who live a few blocks away.

[L106]

The surgical patients who live miles and miles away always make it in, too, even the minor cases that could easily be rescheduled. The surgical cases who don't make it are the ones who live a few blocks away.

Oh, how true. I have also found this same phenomenon among employees!!

Donna

[dherbert]

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

I guess I sort of knew that I might end up inflicting that trick on someone else by presenting it here

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

I have been playing the billiards game on this site now quite often and, at long last, I am beginning to understand the theory of random atom collision!

:eek::eek:

[tricore]

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.

We had an in lab Christmas party every year (this was long, long time ago)and the punch had ETOH added (ordered extra by histology). The hospital Administrator always came. I happy to see we wern't the only ones.

[rrcc1974]

The surgical patients who live miles and miles away always make it in, too, even the minor cases that could easily be rescheduled. The surgical cases who don't make it are the ones who live a few blocks away.

I believe for some of these patients the visit to "the LAB" constitutes a social outing. It's a place to meet with others that have similar issues.

[jcdayaz]

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.

"Out of the mouths of babes"... I love that saying. They say it like it is!

[BrianD]

didn't know where to put this but i had to "fix" this:

patient had one cell in a 3 cell screen go down. standard panocell-20 followed. only 1 cell went down. auto control/DAT both neg. extended panels 1 and 2 all cells negative. 2 xm compatible units issued and patient went home feeling great. the one cell that went down in the P20 panel happened to have been typed as Diego(a) pos. so, ab was identified and reported as anti-Diego(a) based upon only 1 cell in 55 being typed for this antigen and being agglutinated and 53 cells of unknown Diego(a) status not reacting. made me want to take up drinking as a profession. it is very hard to get something OUT of a patient's medical record once discharged and it goes to wherever the medical records dept is located. it could have been anti-Diego(a) but it certainly was not PROVEN to be........when i took it to the chief tech and medical director (needed someone at a higher pay grade to unlock patient records after discharge) they both turned really interesting colors.

[phouck]

You should understand that it is ALWAYS our fault if something goes wrong. Doesn't matter if they wait until 30 minutes before surgery and then the patient has an atypical antibody. Don't you know that WE gave it to them, we are delaying the surgery and WE are responsible for the patient being kept under so long.

[John C. Staley]

Anyone else ever notice how the ER patient is dying and we are uncaring right up to the point the Doc has to sign for uncrossmatched blood. Then things are not quite so bad after all but please hurry as fast as you can with that cross match!

:disbelief:disbelief

[Deny Morlino]

Yes, John, Yes I have! The docs can be a bit overbearing pushing for blood products faster (rightly so mind you), but back waaaay off when uncross-matched blood is mentioned.

[jcdayaz]

Anyone else ever notice how the ER patient is dying and we are uncaring right up to the point the Doc has to sign for uncrossmatched blood. Then things are not quite so bad after all but please hurry as fast as you can with that cross match!

:disbelief:disbelief

Happens all the time here also John. Once we tell a DR we can provide him with O Negs, he will just have to sign an emergency release form, the "emergency" typically becomes not quite so life-threatening.:confused:

[jeanne.wall]

Anyone else ever notice how the ER patient is dying and we are uncaring right up to the point the Doc has to sign for uncrossmatched blood. Then things are not quite so bad after all but please hurry as fast as you can with that cross match! /QUOTE]

The same thing happens with the request to "sign" for incompatible blood - I've been trying to get them blood for hours with many phone calls saying the patient needed to be transfused NOW. Suddenly the patient can wait for me to finish a work-up!

[Mary**]

:rolleyes:Don't you know that was why Med Techs were put on earth? We give them someone to blame! ha

[cassinnc]

I had a physician request O neg uncrossmatched blood for a patient. We had a current specimen and a blood type on the current specimen for the patient, so we sent type -specific blood to the ER. The ordering physician called and was angry that we had not followed his orders and refused to give the patient anything but O neg. He stated "I ordered O neg blood not type-specific."

Edited July 22, 2010 by cassinnc

[mjshepherd]

~The Lab Techs Lament~

We the Williing

Led by theUnknowing.

Are Doing the Impossible,

For the Ungrateful.

WE HAVE DONE SO MUCH,

FOR SO LONG,

WITH SO LITTLE,

We are now qualified to do anything,

With nothing.

-Unknown

[AMcCord]

You should understand that it is ALWAYS our fault if something goes wrong. Doesn't matter if they wait until 30 minutes before surgery and then the patient has an atypical antibody. Don't you know that WE gave it to them, we are delaying the surgery and WE are responsible for the patient being kept under so long.

...and they are happy to tell the family that WE are the reason that Grandma's surgery was cancelled and she has to be rescheduled. Orthopedist's favorite saying "Who ME?!? plan ahead?!!!".

The lab is like a little kid's imaginery friend - anything goes wrong, it's the imaginery friend's fault. At our hospital, we used to swear that everyone thought that it was the lab's fault if the cafeteria burned lunch!

[AMcCord]

I had a physician request O neg uncrossmatched blood for a patient. We had a current specimen and a blood type on the current specimen for the patient, so we sent type -specific blood to the ER. The ordering physician called and was angry that we had not followed his orders and refused to give the patient anything but O neg. He stated "I ordered O neg blood not type-specific."

We had an anesthesiologist send fully crossmatched blood back from the ER because it was type specific and he wanted O neg because "that would be safer for his patient". Our medical director put a quick kabosh on that one.

[jcdayaz]

You should understand that it is ALWAYS our fault if something goes wrong. Doesn't matter if they wait until 30 minutes before surgery and then the patient has an atypical antibody. Don't you know that WE gave it to them, we are delaying the surgery and WE are responsible for the patient being kept under so long.

How true your comment is. We had a surgeon actually write a letter to the CEO of our hospital complaining when one day he had to delay surgery because he waited until 30-45 mins pre-op to have a type/crossmatch done. Guess what? The patient had an antibody! In the letter, the surgeon said something about the Blood Bank not opening until 8:30am.!? Thank goodness we had appropriate documentation of all the notification phone calls we had made and the times the calls were placed. The kicker of this story is the CEO tried to come down on us hard about it. Our BB Pathologist backed us 100% and the CEO backed off.

We now make jokes among ourselves that the Blood Bank is closed for breakfast from 6-8:30am and closes again for lunch from 10am until 2pm. Ha! How ridiculous!