Fizzbin

One time I went into a patient's room to draw a patient who had more missed sticks than not. The resident physician followed me in, wanting to know why we had such a hard time getting her blood. I explained that we were barred from using one arm because she had a mastectomy, and that she had a running IV in her other hand and we couldn't draw above the IV. With a shrug of his shoulder, the resident asked what difference drawing above a running IV made. He was serious. I had to explain the issues to him. And to think this guy was prescribing medication, too.

One time I did the same thing and the caller didn't miss a beat. The caller was an aunt of mine who was a Head Nurse. When I answered the home phone with, "Laboratory, Ken speaking." she replied with, "Okay, I want to order a Stat CBC."

Along the same line, I don't know which one is better: being asked to spell BUN, or when someone wants the "bun" result.

The squeeze bulb was still better to use than the ol' spit string.

I was just made aware of another misdiagnosis: a skin biopsy in which the surgeon told the nurse that the sample was a Skin Ellipse. The nurse turned around and wrote on the requisition: Skinny Lips.

As for mis-diagnoses, registration sometimes types two symptoms into one sentence. Our favorite is: "Unable to eat Diarrhea."

We have an Emergency Department physician who at least three times that I was personally involved, authorized me to issue two units of uncrossmatched O-Positive blood. She felt it was alright, since the patients were either male or elderly, so HDN would not be an problem. One of those times, she told her nurses to expect O-Positive blood. The nurses at first refused to accept the O-Negative units I had, until I convinced them otherwise.

We also have a Helmer water bath, which includes an audible alert letting you know when the cycle is complete. It has greatly improved our turn-around-time for FFP requests.

Although the patient's BBK history would surely cause your heart to skip a beat, it is no different than if she was positive for Kell or Duffy; it's the chance anyone takes when transfusing uncrossmatched blood.