Just For Fun

[ChrisH]

With all that talk about BM..... I was in the Army and was in Korea. I do not know how many O&P we did but they were lined up all the time. We would call patient a positive for one parasite. They could come back in after they finished treatment and we would find another different one. Also those BM of those that eat Kimchi, a gas mask could not spot that smell. To this day I can not be in a room with that stuff.

[AMcCord]

My wife and I were Peace Corps volunteers in Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa, in the mid-70s. One of the other med tech volunteers, a microbiologist, was saving preserved stool specimens chock full of nasty African parasites to make permanent slides of to take home. Alas, she dislocated her hip a few months before her departure and couldn't make the slides. So she's bringing the containers through customs when the customs agent asked what was in them. She told him stool specimens with tropical parasites. He said, "I'll bet" and opened one. Just one.

That'll teah him!!!! Would EWWWWW! describe his comment?

Wonder what they'd do now? Call HazMat and arrest the person carrying the specimens? What a sad world we live in, that we now have to react to everything as if it's a serious threat to our safety!

[Liz]

That'll teah him!!!! Would EWWWWW! describe his comment?

Wonder what they'd do now? Call HazMat and arrest the person carrying the specimens? What a sad world we live in, that we now have to react to everything as if it's a serious threat to our safety!

Oh wow! Today it would be impossible. Its incredible reading that story and remembering the good old days, when even ---- could pass. Those were the days my friend.

[Barb Thompson]

I see that no one has posted here in a while, but I had to laugh the other day.....

A nurse called down from the nursery saying "I ordered an ABO on a baby, but all I got was a blood type."

A little background, here, they were not able to collect a cord blood, so they sent us a heelstick specimen for a type. The day shift tech called the floor to ask them to order the DAT, but somehow, the request just didn't "connect". Hours later the nurse realized something was missing. But she didn't know how to say DAT or even "coombs test"! She just kept insisting that we did the wrong test.

[tbostock]

A nurse asked me for hosed blood. No clue what she was talking about (should I take it out back and hose it off???). I asked if it said "washed" she said no, it said "hosed". Then I looked at the doctor's order:

Hosd blood transfusion today, patient is hemodynamically stable.

Yeah....I think he meant to HOLD THE TRANSFUSION. So I told her that and she said, Oh well, the S and the L are right next to each other on the keyboard. WHAT???? Not on my keyboard they are not.

Good thing I didn't hose off the blood! LOL

[bmarotto]

You mean you couldn't find an ISBT-128 code for hosed blood? I thought they had EVERYTHING covered! :disbelief

[Mabel Adams]

Hmm. S and L are both typed with the third finger--of opposite hands.

- - - Updated - - -

In the nursing world DAT means "diet as tolerated." No wonder we can't get away from "Coombs."

[Sfdreams]

Oh, sorry to keep responding to my own post, but your responses remind me of things (and after 26 years in the field, I have heard a lot).

I once had a patient with a positive antibody screen and I needed more specimen for the antibody work-up. I called the floor and told the Nurse we needed 2 more EDTA tubes on the patient. A little while later a biohazard ziploc bag appeared; guess what was in it? 2 EDTA tubes (NO BLOOD in them). Upon calling her, she said she sent what I requested.. for real!!!

Brenda Hutson, CLS(ASCP)SBB

OH..My...Gosh!! Some people leave their brains behind, methinks!

[apfelblosm]

This was in my generalist days, but I worked in a pediatric hospital and we had a hopping ER. I was in hematology at the time and I was doing a urinalysis. I always liked to look at the diagnosis to see if it had any bearing on what I was testing and this little boy's sample had, "Pee pee hurts" as the diagnosis...really? What are we taking the diagnosis from the kids now? LOL

[tricore]

Remember, these are admitting clerks who are entering the diagnosis. They enter what the patient says. My favorite is still Fawn Willow Bronze Disease.

[jerriemc]

Back in the stone age of manual requests. I got a request for a CBC on a patient in AM and also got a request for a platelet count in AM on the same patient. After I hand carried the results to the ICU(like I said this was in the stone age) I got a call from the patient's nurse " I got my CBC on bed 6 but I did not get my platelet count how much longer will it be?"

[EDibble]

Back in the stone age of manual requests. I got a request for a CBC on a patient in AM and also got a request for a platelet count in AM on the same patient. After I hand carried the results to the ICU(like I said this was in the stone age) I got a call from the patient's nurse " I got my CBC on bed 6 but I did not get my platelet count how much longer will it be?"

My first answer, probably under my breath, would be, "We do not do platelet counts on beds. We do them on patients."

Beth

[Dr. Pepper]

My first answer, probably under my breath, would be, "We do not do platelet counts on beds. We do them on patients."

Beth

There is (allegedly) a campaign in nursing to eliminate the practice of refering to patients as beds, but you'd never know it. We still get asked "Is the blood ready on 13A?", to which I reply "Does 13A have a name?"

[AMcCord]

There is (allegedly) a campaign in nursing to eliminate the practice of refering to patients as beds, but you'd never know it. We still get asked "Is the blood ready on 13A?", to which I reply "Does 13A have a name?"

I hope that campaign reaches here soon!

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

The other one I HATE is when a doctor telephones the Blood Bank and says "I cross-match two units of blood earlier. Is it ready yet?" To which the reply is ALWAYS, "I don't know. If you cross-matched it, you should know. Do you, on the other hand, mean that you ordered two units of blood to be cross-matched, but if you'd like to come to the Laboratory yourself and cross-match it - if you know how, then feel free. Now then, should we start this conversation again?".

[BankerGirl]

We have one unit secretary who always calls to say that she has an order to "transfer" 2 units of blood to a patient. I thought it she just did not know how to pronounce "transfuse", but she actually types transfer into the order comment field. This also seems to be contagious, because I heard another secretary say transfer the other day. I guess, the nurses do transfer it from the blood bag to the patient, but it makes me cringe!

[ChrisH]

Back in the day, we would get orders for a 10 pack of pulled platelets. So 2 techs would get together and grab some platelets and start pulling on the bags!

[sajohnson]

The most common platelet "discussion" nowadays is the order for 10 platelets. Okay doc, do you mean one adult dose of 10 pooled platelets or, god help us, 10 actual full doses of platelets.

Then, regardless of that answer, a nurse will call saying the pooled bag says that it is a pool of four - so where are the other six?

[mammothbb]

I worked in a hospital where the Blood Bank was actually part of the entire clinical lab so we got to intereact with Hematology. They would always come in and give us a heads up if there was a very low Hgb in a patient. On this day one of the techs came in holding a sample in her hand explaining the CBC results on this patient isn't accurate. She then went on to explain that she stuck a stick in his pee hole. I asked "What? You stuck a stick in his pee hole???" She says yes! We went back and forth a couple more times as my eyes continued to widen more and more. Finally it became clear when she said "Yes, I stuck a stick in the sample for patient Espijo and there's a clot in it!".

[jeanne.wall]

I worked in a hospital where the Blood Bank was actually part of the entire clinical lab so we got to intereact with Hematology. They would always come in and give us a heads up if there was a very low Hgb in a patient. On this day one of the techs came in holding a sample in her hand explaining the CBC results on this patient isn't accurate. She then went on to explain that she stuck a stick in his pee hole. I asked "What? You stuck a stick in his pee hole???" She says yes! We went back and forth a couple more times as my eyes continued to widen more and more. Finally it became clear when she said "Yes, I stuck a stick in the sample for patient Espijo and there's a clot in it!".

Someone has to say it so it might as well be me - whose on first?????