Auntie-D Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 It drives me insane the lack of knowledge of people that I work with!! Local proficiency testing questions and one member of staff with 30 years experience was so far off the mark with the answer to one it was scary! I tried to point them in the right direction but they semi-recovered but still gave the wrong follow-up and type of follow-up. Hopefully when the powers that be see the answers they will educate... Does anyone else ever have a day when you think 'How on earth can you NOT know that - it's absolute fundamental basics!'?? mdavids and jayinsat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 13, 2013 Author Share Posted December 13, 2013 Also - does anyone else have a problem with people not returning blood to stock in expiry order? I'm having to rearrange the fridge daily and it's doing my swede in! jayinsat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Needs ☆ Posted December 14, 2013 Share Posted December 14, 2013 It drives me insane the lack of knowledge of people that I work with!! Local proficiency testing questions and one member of staff with 30 years experience was so far off the mark with the answer to one it was scary! I tried to point them in the right direction but they semi-recovered but still gave the wrong follow-up and type of follow-up. Hopefully when the powers that be see the answers they will educate... Does anyone else ever have a day when you think 'How on earth can you NOT know that - it's absolute fundamental basics!'?? Almost daily! mewilde1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Eye Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 (edited) And these are the techs who think they know all and never can make mistake Edited December 16, 2013 by Eagle Eye Malcolm Needs, EDibble, Auntie-D and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Needs ☆ Posted December 15, 2013 Share Posted December 15, 2013 I agree Eagle Eye. And a Biomedical Scientist/Technician, or anyone else come to that, who says that they have never made a mistake, is a major accident waiting to happen. LCoronado, RR1 and Auntie-D 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 15, 2013 Author Share Posted December 15, 2013 Today's rant - no transfusion forms filed since Friday when I left! And no samples capped either.I guess some jobs are beneath people jayinsat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justina Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 I hear your frustrations Aunti-D. Unfortunately it is all to common. All we do is put notes everywhere and have forms and more forms for things that are no brainer job tasks. LCoronado 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 16, 2013 Author Share Posted December 16, 2013 I didnt start work that long ago and jobs were just done. Benches cleaned daily, centrifuges weekly, weekly and monthly maintenance done on set days - now we have logs as people just don't bother and still they don't get done! Where have the standards gone? Why do people just not care any more? LCoronado 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 16, 2013 Author Share Posted December 16, 2013 No rant today as I am at home playing ponies recovering from a 12 hour Sunday shift Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMILLER Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 it seems to me that there is a trend in healthcare in general, ofr less and less appriopriate oversight. In the Lab, we have here a few managers, but there time is spent with HR duties and other administrative tasks, such as attending meetings. They do not have time for major oversight of day-to-day activity. We have coordinators for keeping track of technical issues in various areas, but no supervisors to ensure that bench techs do waht need to be done every day (techs are supposed to be independently motivated anyway - right?). Other than continuing education for all for problems that keep popping up (time consuming for someone!), it seems like you need to fall back on discipline. If a job description says a BB tech needs to file paperwork, and they do not do it, that is a deficiency and should be reflected in thier appraisals. But keeping track of all this stuff takes time, which management does not have. It seems to be a visious circle. Remmeber to not sweat the smaller stuff. One has to depend on those techs that will go the extra mile, and sometimes they are few and far between. The ones looking at retirement often do not seem to care much about anything, and too many fresh techs just don't have the experience or mature attitude to do what needs to be done. All it seems we can do is try to set a good example. This is especially important for management; who are after all, primarily responsible for the morale of the people who they are responsible for. Scott Dr. Pepper, Jody, mewilde1 and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayinsat Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Don't even get me started! The things i've had to deal with over the last 5 years have left me wondering how have we remained acredited. I have had to learn how to apply the serenity prayer on a daily basis. It's especially unnerving when the incompetence comes from the department manager. To have to daily correct your managers errors and oversights, while not appearing to challenge their authority is quite an interesting environment. Eagle Eye, LCoronado, pdameron and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LCoronado Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Auntie-D, Your post was so timely for me! Due to short staffing (a rant for another day) I worked at the bench for two days last week and was appalled at the the things I found that I had been trusting to the techs. Tasks are organized on a clipboard: daily, weekly, monthly, etc. The daily and weekly are apparently signed off regardless of whether done or not, and the monthly, quarterly and semiannual lists appear to be written with disappearing ink on invisible paper !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Auntie and others, we share your pain. If I may add to the list of pet peeves: 1. Starting weekly temperature discs on fridge/freezers on the wrong day and/or time. Then 5 days in a row 5 different techs document that the scribe is OK. 2. Not recording medical record numbers and dates on panel scoresheets. Record keeping in general. 3. Not printing copies of panel scoresheets on both sides so you get the extended antigen typings on the the back. Not changing the scoresheets when you open a new panel lot. 4. Filing QC records etc. with bloodstains (hopefully reagent but you never know) all over them. 5. First cousin to the above: finding blood all over the counter, centrifuges, agglutination viewer, outside of the biohazard bin, drawers or cabinets, making you wonder if a worker had been shot or merely had sneezed violently during a torrential nosebleed. 6. Discarding packing lists from the blood center so I have to get copies to check the bimonthly bill. Happens pretty much each cycle. 7. Finding obviously broken thermometers, pipettors etc. in place. Whoever broke them knew they had done so but decided to keep it secret.. 8. Not telling you when the last kit, vial, package, bulb or box was opened so you might have a ghost of a chance to order more before you run out. 9. I put out a half dozen pens and markers a week. Where do they go? Even if we supply the whole lab we should have reached the saturation point decades ago. 10. A tech asked me if it was OK in a pinch to just use one drop of plasma/serum per tube for an antibody screen; another tech had told him that was fine if you didn't have much sample. This was right before last year's competency eval, so I included that as a question. 5 people said it was OK. So we had a little inservice on the value of following the manufacturer's directions, our own P&P, and the need to validate any variations in protocols etc before you do so. I heard a great line a few years ago that went something like "Ignorance ain't what you don't know; it's knowing too many things that ain't so!" Thank you, I feel better. Maureen, jayinsat, AMcCord and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMILLER Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Well, at least theoretically, ignorance can be corrected by education (if you have time for it!). But -- "Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain" LCoronado, Malcolm Needs and Auntie-D 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LCoronado Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Yes Dr. Pepper - Have seen all that too. Our pen was not calibrated properly on the refrigerator temperature module and it was adjusted several times but poorly. I found a week where it was reading 7C, but the techs kept reading it as 3-4. Another week and it was recording a temperature of 0. The techs that week recorded it as - you guessed it - 3-4! Auntie-D and pstruik 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 16, 2013 Author Share Posted December 16, 2013 What have I started? I may keep this thread going as a place to vent Eagle Eye and jayinsat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pstruik Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Many years ago on a day when I was in the middle of completing our MHRA return with no assistance from anyone and feeling very stressed I wandered from my office into the lab to discover about 10 such things in 30 seconds.I - very unprofessionally - had a rant which was soto voce but in a somewhat menacing tone and continued through the silence for what seemed like a very long time and ended with me shrugging my shoulders and - even more unprofessionally - walking out and going home.I am in no way proud of my behaviour nor commend such a course of action to anyone.And I did apologise profusely the next morning. BUT standards showed an instant, long-lasting and dramatic improvement. I suppose the answer is to use media like this to vent your frustrations and then finding an appropriate way to communicate that to your staff.Good luck. L106, SMILLER, mdavids and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophie1210 Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I've been having this issue with some people as well. One of my questions on the competency states "according to our policies and procedures," and somebody got it wrong because they didn't pull out the procedure. I felt that was a pretty big hint in the question. I've had some who want hand-holding and I can't write a procedure for every possibility that could happen; I'd fill a bookstore if I had to write that many. They just want to cookbook it like they can in other departments and I'm trying to get them to realize that some things you just have to think through and if you're not sure to call me. mdavids and mewilde1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aafrin Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Shortcuts! Don't forget the shortcuts some techs take to complete work - it's as if somebody has put a gun to their head and no one is going to come in next shift to continue further. They will shorten incubation time, not follow SOPs and give proper hand offs to incoming techs. I keep on streamlining work, make checklists and logs, but to no avail. I think with complete automation, technician errors will at least be taken care of with test procedures (hope???). I always tell everyone, at least use your basic commonsense, but then "commonsense is not very common". pstruik, mdavids and AMcCord 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 (edited) Yes Dr. Pepper - Have seen all that too. Our pen was not calibrated properly on the refrigerator temperature module and it was adjusted several times but poorly. I found a week where it was reading 7C, but the techs kept reading it as 3-4. Another week and it was recording a temperature of 0. The techs that week recorded it as - you guessed it - 3-4!Good idea - this way, you can get your QC done weeks ahead of time! Edited December 17, 2013 by Dr. Pepper BankerGirl, jmm8427, L106 and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOGLOVER Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I think I will get away from the venting,(although venting can be very important to ones sanity at times) because although we have a few issues (generally minor, like not checking pending logs when they are supposed to and acting on them) for the most part my techs are very responsible and really take their jobs to heart. They all really care and I am so thankful to have worked with this group for the last 12+ years. I will be retiring Jan 3 and its been a great group to work with. I will still PRN a few shifts here and there but not as manager. I will still check in on BB Talk. Will have time to visit and spoil my little grandbaby. Hopefully get to move back to New England (New Hampshire or Maine), depends on the housing market. Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Thanks so much for this website, it is a great thing. Auntie-D, Dr. Pepper, rravkin@aol.com and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auntie-D Posted December 17, 2013 Author Share Posted December 17, 2013 (edited) Today so far we have had - a manual crossmatch set up without a control done- a run of samples being put on as a confirmation screen rather than a full screen as they didn't host query the computer- a newly qualified member of staff getting a lab assistant to do the pre transfusion checks which is a bms 'job'- someone ignoring a mixed field result - ' oh it will just be medication related'. Despite the fact is was a group A and the previous sample had been sent to the reference centre and further samples requested as it was insufficientI'm on a late shift and this was all before my break Edited December 17, 2013 by Auntie-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Pepper Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I think I will get away from the venting,(although venting can be very important to ones sanity at times) because although we have a few issues (generally minor, like not checking pending logs when they are supposed to and acting on them) for the most part my techs are very responsible and really take their jobs to heart. They all really care and I am so thankful to have worked with this group for the last 12+ years. I will be retiring Jan 3 and its been a great group to work with. I will still PRN a few shifts here and there but not as manager. I will still check in on BB Talk. Will have time to visit and spoil my little grandbaby. Hopefully get to move back to New England (New Hampshire or Maine), depends on the housing market. Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Thanks so much for this website, it is a great thing.You're right about the staff; all but one of my vents were things that annoy me, not harm a patient. Congrats and good luck with the retirement. Do you really want to leave the south, though? It was -12oF in southern Maine (Alfred) this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Eye Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Shortcuts! Don't forget the shortcuts some techs take to complete work - it's as if somebody has put a gun to their head and no one is going to come in next shift to continue further. They will shorten incubation time, not follow SOPs and give proper hand offs to incoming techs. I keep on streamlining work, make checklists and logs, but to no avail. I think with complete automation, technician errors will at least be taken care of with test procedures (hope???). I always tell everyone, at least use your basic commonsense, but then "commonsense is not very common". I love this-----"Commonsense is not very common".... What have I started? I may keep this thread going as a place to vent Yes this thread will reach 100, 1000 marks in no time.... Auntie-D 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Needs ☆ Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Had a BMS put up a cold agglutinin screen last week (possibly a coroner's case, possibly going to court) by PBS and by DTT-treated plasma WITHOUT a control! I was livid! Auntie-D 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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