ALthough I haven't heard it in awhile, nurses used to call for the bun results on **** in room xxx. I always wanted to ask if that was a hamburger or hot dog bun.

:imslow:

One diagnosis I remember is "arm don't work". I've been told that the ER registration personnel have to enter it exactly as they hear it!

I also love the fact that I should know who is in room 432B. But I digress.....

One of our techs was answering a call for stool results and the nurse just flatly refused to give the patient's name, insisting that we should look the patient up by room number. The tech replied that unless there was poop running down the wall, that ROOM didn't have a stool specimen in the lab!

Marla -

I haven't laughed that loud since a couple pages ago in this thread!

I once saw the diagnosis: "eats light bulbs".

I wonder if this is the same one we had- maybe it's a common thing?? Shock and surprise, with his frequent tranfusions, he did have some antibodies!!

Jennifer

:clap:Funny,funny,funny!

If you were antibody screening him you would have to use LIGHT chain specific AHG. :tongue:

I picked up the phone and answered "Transfusion Reaction, this is Brenda."

Brenda Hutson, MT(ASCP), CLS, SBB

Just to show how much we answer phones during the day, many is the time I've arrived home after a busy day only to answer my own phone: "Blood Bank - Margaret speaking. How can I help you?" This is usually followed by laughter or confusion on the other end!

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

Michigan

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

I love it! It's always fun to come up with subtle acronyms that slip by the IS people.....!

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

Michigan

Don't know if it was posted elsewhere, but can anyone remember using the wbc & rbc pipettes for filling hemacytometers, & using the small rubber tubes to aspirate the cells? ESR's also come to mind, and I hate to think that we did not use squeeze bulbs!

I never saw these in my internship or first 3 jobs, but did when I started working in a 60-bed facility in a sparsely populated, rural community down south. The first thing I got as a new tech was my very own rubber tube with mouth piece so we didn't have to share. Who cares about the coworkers - what about the patients?

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

And who among us has not spent (wasted) time working up an antibody for someone exhibiting strong rouleaux? I learned a valuable lesson with tube testing when everything reverts to negative at coombs!!

One of my favorite phrases: "Don't look for zebras!" In other words, if it sound like hoofbeats look for a horse rather than a zebra.

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

I never saw these in my internship or first 3 jobs, but did when I started working in a 60-bed facility in a sparsely populated, rural community down south. The first thing I got as a new tech was my very own rubber tube with mouth piece so we didn't have to share. Who cares about the coworkers - what about the patients?

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

Gosh, I remember those!

Awful things!

Quite some time ago we were working with our trauma team on process improvements for turn around time in these very urgent cases. At one point after the physician had complained yet again that we were too slow, I said that we had talked extensively about the blood bank process for producing the blood units, perhaps we needed to look at the ordering end to see if things could improve there. I asked him to tell me about the ordering process. He looked at me and said (completely seriously) "I call into the air and blood shows up."

:disbelief

And we wonder where they get their GOD complex.......?:tongue:

Thirty years ago our transfusion service got a sample on a patient in OR. The tech found the reverse type almost undetectable and the sample looking "watered down" so she called OR and told them they would need to send a "new clot" before we could do the crossmatch. A few minutes later a basin appeared with a nice big dark slug of a clot in it. Needless to say she had to clarify her request for a new clot tube.

Brilliant!

Maybe she could have used the "clot" that sent it down in the first place!

Love it Mabel.

Just to show how much we answer phones during the day, many is the time I've arrived home after a busy day only to answer my own phone: "Blood Bank - Margaret speaking. How can I help you?" This is usually followed by laughter or confusion on the other end!

Margaret Wilde, MT(ASCP)SBB

Michigan

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."

I am on-call working at the Tooting Blood Centre tonight on a sample with the auto-antibody from Hell.

I have just received a telephone call from the Accident and Emergency Department at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings. On the end of the telephone was a Senior House Officer telling me that I would have recieved a Group and Screen on some Joe Doe, and that he would now like me to cross-match.

I said I wasn't aware of receiving the sample and how long ago did he send it?

15 minutes came the reply (Hastings is about 65 miles from Tooting by the way).

I explained to him in words of one syllable (well, there may have been one two syllable word involved, which may get me fired) that he might like to try telephoning the Hospital Blood Bank.

"Oh," he said, "Can they cross-match on site then?"

Quite apart from the fact that he should have known this before he was let loose on patients, how does he think the samples are transported? By fighter jet??????????????

:angered::angered:

Can't you teleport things Malcolm?

Can't you teleport things Malcolm?

I've been in since 6.30 this morning. It is now 10.10 at night, and I haven't nearly finished the auto-antibody case.

I've just been called by Medway Maritime about a patient on the table with a pan-reacting antibody reacting by IAT only (not auto).

I suspect that will take about 2 hours to get here and then I've got to investigate it (another 2 hours?).

At the moment, I can't even switch on a television, let alone teleport!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:eek::eek:

Oh, and I've run out of milk for my coffee (I should probably have it black anyway).

:eek:I hope your charge an after hours fee! Our reference lab cahrges an extra $750 for nights, weekends and holidays.

Oh, yeah......I'm sure Malcolm gets to pocket that extra big fee. Just like we get paid for overtime........(.NOT!!)

Oh, yeah......I'm sure Malcolm gets to pocket that extra big fee. Just like we get paid for overtime........(.NOT!!)

I'm afriad you are correct.

We get a certain flt fee for being on call in the first place (we are based at home), and then we get paid if we have to come in to work.

This is more complicated than it sounds. If you get called in, and you finish the work in 5 minutes, you still get paid an hour (of course, this never happens). If you get called in and you work for four hours, you get paid the first hour, and then every quarter of an hour after that.

I can't remember how much it is, but one os not going to retire to the Bahamas on it! It is much less than a plumber gets for being called out to a burst pipe!

Believe it or not, the hospitals actually pay no more for having an investigation performed during on-call hours than they do for sending it in during core hours!

:eek:

We had an ER physician ask for 2 units of uncrossmatched O Neg for her bleeding patient. About 10 minutes after they were sent, she called back yelling that we gave her "Zero negative" blood.

We had an ER physician ask for 2 units of uncrossmatched O Neg for her bleeding patient. About 10 minutes after they were sent, she called back yelling that we gave her "Zero negative" blood.

OMG!!!!

Linda Frederick

My ER person that didn't know their own Blood Bank could cross-match blood.

jasonviau's ER person that didn't know that O Neg was not 0 Neg.

Who do they let into ER these days???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

***From a patient, after being in the bathroom for an hour to collect a semen analysis: "I'm sorry, I just couldn't get it to the fill line" ***

Now THAT is funny!

I had a new doctor who phoned me for some "See negative blood" so I asked "Is that big C or little c?" - he (obviously annoyed" retorted "Does it matter? Just send it now!". The half-argument continued until we got to the "Who am I spaeking to?" stage and then on to "I'll speak to your Consultant". This was then followed by my consultant forwarding the irate doctor back to me to apologise for the earlier exchange.

Don't you just love September when all the newbies start on the wards?!