[melsch]

I have been working on a medical oncology/palliative unit for the past 8 months, I had been working in extended care before that. I am finding that I am not comfortable with the amount of knowlege I have about routine bloodwork. I am wondering if anyone knows of a pocket reference or somewhere online that I could go to to quickly brush up on what some of the things that can be picked up by lab values that are out of wack.

Our lab prints up what the normal values are and what the patient's actual values are but lots of times I don't know what it means when something is too high or too low and when I need to worry and when I can just keep monitoring the patient. I don't really have time at work to go through the lab book every day for every test on every patient and I rarely see anyone with perfect lab values. I also don't want to be calling the doctor about stuff that really doesn't matter, but I also don't want to miss something that I should have caught.

If anyone has any ideas to remember the basics I would love to hear them

Thanks

Mel

[RNPATL]

Springhouse offers several different reference guides for this. In addition, you can get some of these refernce guides pretty reasonable at amazon.com. Good luck.

[KimberlyT]

Originally Posted by RNPATL

Springhouse offers several different reference guides for this. In addition, you can get some of these refernce guides pretty reasonable at amazon.com. Good luck.

Yes, I have that Springhouse book and refer to it a lot. It's called "Diagnostic tests made incredibly easy" or something along those lines. Actually I LOVE all of those "made incredibly easy" books. I have 5 or 6 of them and they are a great quick reference. A little spendy at $40 each, but I have never regretted buying them.

[meownsmile]

With labs,, i usually hold on the call unless its one that is critical or one i know will immediately threaten the patient if not addressed like potassium levels. Otherwise, the docs will be making rounds and i usually will set a time frame for myself. If i havent seen the doc by say 10ish,, ill call him.
The usual comment is "Ill be making rounds soon". But i can still document that i called and reported it.

[nurse96]

What I find usefull is first looking at what the lab levels have been and go from there.