Just For Fun

[KKidd]

I am thinking she must have been referring to babies being jaundiced. Still, it is certainly not a one-to-one correlation of jaundice to positive DAT.

Brenda

What's even worse is when the pediatrician questions the mothodology because there hva been "too many positive DATs in the last week". I did explain that there were ABO incompatibilities involved in all of them!

:disbelief

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

A couple that have nothing to do with Blood Transfusion, one of which has nothing to do with Pathology as a whole.

1) Chemical Pathology received a clotted blood sample for a test that required plasma. They sent out a report asking that whale blood be sent.

2. There was a patient who had been in a ward for several weeks and had become somewhat depressed and dependent on the nursing staff. Just how depressed was revealed in the notes written by her doctor.

"Patient feeling better today; ate herself"!

There was also a Consultant in Chemical Pathology who was no fan of tick boxes on request forms. He designed a form with every Chemical Pathology test you could possibly think of listed, but the last tick box said, "None of the above". The Laboratory received many, many requests with the last box ticked, and the Consultant concerned signed and sent out blank reports on these requests. He was soon made to change his ways by the Hospital Authorities, but had made his point.

[Linda0623]

One of my techs told me the story of how a nurse had ordered platelet pheresis on a patient, and after picking up the unit from the Blood Bank, called to say that the order requested the platelets be "packed". So the tech asked them to bring the unit back and he would pack them. The nurse then replied "i've already transfused the unit, but it still needs to be packed." The tech then said to her, well, she could bring the patient down to the Blood Bank to be centrifuged. When she replied, "You can do that?" The tech burst out laughing.....Can you believe, he was written up for saying that to her???????

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

We have to ABO group potential renal donors and recipients for a Renal Unit in the South of England (why we, as a Reference Laboratory perform these ABO groups, instead of their own Hospital Blood Bank is a mystery, but that is another story).

One of the coordinators always writes on the donor request form "Potential Living Kidney Donor".

I have often wondered how they revive these people to assess whether they are willing to donate this organ, if they are even willing so to do after being dead.

I have pointed out on many occasions that "Living Potential Kidney Donor" might be a little more appropriate, but have been banging my head against a brick wall.

:rolleyes:

[bennette]

i just want to share this one though its not really funny.

a hospital's staff called up the blood center asking if our blood center has ffp stock. when we replied that we have. they automatically asked if it is fresh or "how many days old?" This always happened for prbc and whole blood even on cs patients.

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

I came across a superb bit of mis-spelling today by a doctor.

It is the first time I have ever seen the word "Sir Name"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:eyepoppin:eyepoppin:eyepoppin

[lhawth]

I actually still have the request form that I received for "Fresh rolls and plasma".

[mammothbb]

John & Brenda,

Don't get me started about diagnoses!! Two of my favorites were "ball bladder disease" and "sickosellonemia". (I kid you not!)

Donna

LMAO!!!!!

[mammothbb]

Favorite diagnosis: fawn willow bronze disease

I love it!! Thanks for the laughs everybody!

[RR1]

Sometimes (quite often!) technical staff do silly things too. I know of a hospital that kept their blood fridge in theatres locked to prevent unauthorised use, but then had the access code posted on the fridge door just in case!

[Brenda K Hutson]

Sometimes (quite often!) technical staff do silly things too. I know of a hospital that kept their blood fridge in theatres locked to prevent unauthorised use, but then had the access code posted on the fridge door just in case!

Well ok, if it's "true confessions" time; along the lines of Technical Staff doing silly things, I will confess (though I guess it isn't really "that" funny): One day while working at a very busy large Medical Center, I was trying to do many things at once (I know, none of you can relate, right....), among which was a Transfusion Reaction. So multi-tasking, phones ringing off the hook; at one point, I picked up the phone and answered "Transfusion Reaction, this is Brenda." I heard a laugh on the other end of the phone; it was the anesth. from OR; he said "well I hope not...."

Brenda Hutson, MT(ASCP), CLS, SBB

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

Don't worry Brenda.

In the old days, part of a Pathologists training was to do on-call in blood transfusion. One of these (my Best Man at my wedding actually) regularly used to answer the telephone as,

"Hello, Blood Confusion".

[NedB]

OK Guys and Gals. I enjoyed these but was refraining from adding my favorite because it really is regional - south, very south. A Microbiology Tech once showed me a request that read Gat Colcha .... She wanted to know what body part that was. I explained to her that the Nurse wrote what she heard - the Doctor called from the other side of the room. 'Nuss, gat a colcha on this.' Two swabs in a sterile tube.

[L106]

Good one, Ned!

[Barb Thompson]

Received a cord blood yesterday on a baby whose diagnosis was "Pre-Newborn"

[L106]

Wow! Do you think that was rather painful for the mother?

[RR1]

How about the fun things we used to do in the lab like messing around with dry ice. I remember ( in the not so distant past!) having a great time adding warm water to dry ice pellets and watching them bubble away- it was very relaxing until someone added some liquid detergent, and we ended up with soap bubbles pouring all over the floor that took a while to clean up.

And does anyone remember squirting saline at colleagues over lab benches ( this was pre- lab computers)?

Has Health & Safety taken away all the fun in labs?

[Kellpos]

Just remembered when I was in the army, stationed in Hawaii for 27 months (Vietnam era), and working as a med tech, that we would sometimes go to the post movie theater which was free.When the pathologist on call was paged, the camera person would have to write the doctor's name on an acetate sheet & move it into position over the film so everyone in the theater could see it. This was before pagers & cell phones.

[donellda]

How about the fun things we used to do in the lab like messing around with dry ice. I remember ( in the not so distant past!) having a great time adding warm water to dry ice pellets and watching them bubble away- it was very relaxing until someone added some liquid detergent, and we ended up with soap bubbles pouring all over the floor that took a while to clean up.

And does anyone remember squirting saline at colleagues over lab benches ( this was pre- lab computers)?

Has Health & Safety taken away all the fun in labs?

Back in the day we had a light box with a polaroid camera to take pictures of our lipoprotein electrophereis columns. We used to lay our head on the light box and snap pictures of ourselves:cool:

[lateonenite]

Dentists at an Air Force base I was at, Dr Hurt and Dr Payne.

At another hospital, we had a Dr Death and a Dr Killen.

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

How about the fun things we used to do in the lab like messing around with dry ice. I remember ( in the not so distant past!) having a great time adding warm water to dry ice pellets and watching them bubble away- it was very relaxing until someone added some liquid detergent, and we ended up with soap bubbles pouring all over the floor that took a while to clean up.

And does anyone remember squirting saline at colleagues over lab benches ( this was pre- lab computers)?

Has Health & Safety taken away all the fun in labs?

We use to do that too, but we would also add time expired anti-A or anti-B to the mixture. This made the bubbles a very pretty yellow or blue (trouble was, the colouring used to stain the floor, and so we got found out).

:D

[RBC]

one day we got a xmatch from NICU with out mother sample so we called up for the mother sample . the nurse said ( mother is not here now , is grandmother smaple ok ??

[YorkshireExile]

At my previous hospital we would sometimes get antibody identifcation panels that were scruffy or weak reacting 1+ with very few cells. Rather than do complex further investigations we sent them out as non-specific. In the lab we called them either: Serological Haemagglutination of Indeterminate Type... or ...Cold Reacting Agglutinating Phenomena.

You do the abbreviations

[Malcolm Needs ☆]

At my previous hospital we would sometimes get antibody identifcation panels that were scruffy or weak reacting 1+ with very few cells. Rather than do complex further investigations we sent them out as non-specific. In the lab we called them either: Serological Haemagglutination of Indeterminate Type... or ...Cold Reacting Agglutinating Phenomena.

You do the abbreviations

When I was working with Carolyn Giles and Joyce Poole at the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory (IBGRL) in the early to mid-1970's when it was in London (and when Joyce was a mere Senior Medical Laboratory Technician) they called these near impossibly weak reactions (commonly known as "negative reactions") "Malcolm weaks".

To my embarrassment, essentially negative, but scruffy reactions, are, apparently, still known as "Malcolm weaks" at the IBGRL. Sadly, It is my only claim to fame from when I was employed there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the other hand, generations of people who have passed through the doors of the Laboratory must think, "Who the heck is this Malcolm bloke"!

:disbelief:disbelief:disbelief

[Mabel Adams]

I remember thinking it was fun to chase mercury from a broken thermometer.

We also had fun with dancing rubber bands. If they are placed in a minus 30 or 70 freezer while (stretched around a box or something), when they are removed they will sqirm around in an entertaining fashion as they warm up. At least this one is harmless.

Best of all was playing with liquid nitrogen for a muscle biopsy. We would freeze leaves of plants etc. in it and watch them shatter after dropping them.

Doesn't take much to amuse some people.