Liann

I am a med tech in the Blood Bank. When I worked on Thanksgiving, an OR nurse came to pick up blood and told me I could take my time getting it ready because she was on double-triple overtime.....isnt that wonderful? (I sure as heck was NOT getting any of that kind of pay) I told her we only have ONE speed in the Blood Bank and that is STAT Even if I did get that kind of money , I definitely would not go around bragging to other departments about it. No wonder the animosity continues.....

Prmenrs: The first book in the Anne Perry series about Nurse Hester Latterly (and her detective and lawyer friends) is called Face of a Stranger.

Some thoughts I had on reading this thread.... I went to Medical Technology school in 1982...yeah...its ancient history...and we were taught to do hemacytometer grid counts for CBC as well as the little dilution pipettes that you had to SUCK up on to make the dilution. What happens if you draw up too hard? YUM... Eventually we were issued little rubber tubing pipettor mouthpieces, but they were hard to use since you already learned the other way! We did quite a lot of labor intense hand method chemistry tests. These would of course be cast aside to be replaced by multi analyzers before we even graduated. Blood bank type and cross has become a bit more streamlined, but is still very similar to what I learned 20+ years ago. BUT...I have been told that a lot of the old ways are still practiced in developing countries where analyzers are too expensive or require too much power to run. I mentioned in another thread about good nursing reads that I enjoy books by Anne Perry who writes about a nurse in the 1860s who served in the Crimea with Florence Nightingale. Hester's nursing practice is fascinating to read...and her knowledge of herbal remedies is awesome. Nurses were also the pharmacists then, I guess!

If taking the very best care of the patient is the goal, then someone has to draw the lab tests. I am a laboratorian and I do my very best to work with whatever clotted, hemolyzed, skimpy sample I get. I never call for a recollect if I dont absolutely have to. People who are in a hurry often forget to label tubes, or draw the wrong color tube, or struggle to get an ABG, and I can't help that I must get a recollect. Please give us the same benefit of the doubt that you would like to receive from us. I hope that the above mentioned sadistic tech is a rarity.

I see The Ciderhouse Rules by John Irving is on the list. It is not strictly about nursing, but is one of my favorite (medically related) books of all time. It really makes you think...

WOW...that is some list, landonsles! I will have to go through it when I have more time!!!! Thanks.

Are the pharmaceutical companies starting to market coumedin in prefilled PEZ dispensors? Must be....I work in the Blood Bank, and it seems as if all we do anymore is thaw mass quantities of FFP. Docs yelling for it...and it takes 30 min to thaw....remember, it's FROZEN.....

I forgot Tess Gerritsen! Awesome stories! I read somewhere that Stephen King himself is her biggest fan......thats a great endorsement!

I figured someone would say that

We Band of Angels was wonderful, but The Healers War by the same author about Vietnam was not as good. It was OK, but had a slant that I did not agree with. Maybe Vietnam is still too touchy a subject? The M*A*S*H books are funny and also have a political commentary theme. Echo Heron's books are also very fun to read. Particia Cornwell is a bit depressing, and the characters get whiny after a while. Robin Cook, great of course...all of those Coma type stories. Michael Crichton stories are always a good bet...he thought up the E.R. TV show! Anne Perry has several series of Victorian era books...one concerns a nurse just back from the Crimea named Hester who marries a detective named Monk. She helps solve mysteries in between working towards hospital and health care reforms! These books are all great...and the nursing issues are well researched. I will try to think of some more... Can you tell that I read a lot? :chuckle

I think the confusion comes from the definition of STAT. This staus should only be used when a result is dire, as was previously stated. People abuse STAT status to get thing moving quickly for various reasons, such as STAT Rhogam orders we get for outpatient prenatal visits...yeah, Blood Banker...drop that transfusion you are working on and get that Rhogam STAT so the patient can get on with HER busy day. Our Blood Bank also runs all blood gases and STAT chemistries for the entire hospital, including the OR. You try deciding which is more important, the gas or the transfusion...sometimes on the same patient! Our protocol is to run all gases within 15 minutes of receiving them. Thats IF they are not clotted or not on ice, requiring recollect. NICU capillary tubes are notorious for arriving clotted...argh. There are indeed many samples received in a day. Everyone thinks that THEIR patient is the most important. I do the best I can.....with what I have to work with....

Well, then welcome to the world of the lab! Forewarned is forearmed. Best of luck to you! Dont forget to keep hanging out here at allnurses. This group is the greatest! :chuckle

Also... "getting the word out" is a theme of every National Medical Laboratory Week in April. Each year we plan a grand production designed to teach the public and our co workers just what we do. The lack of interest is staggering. We sit at tables in front of colorful displays or powerpoint demos where no one stops to look. We send out press releases that are ignored or barely acknowledged. We offer tours and free cholesterol screenings, etc but these seem poorly attended. Lab work just is not glamorous! We are the black box where tubes of blood and other specimens go in and results come out the other end. Period.

As I said before, I love the job, just hate the conditions we work in. When I was younger and idealistic, I chose the path I did because I loved bio and chem and all the hands on lab work. I did NOT enjoy so much patient contact...or patient's family member interaction either, for that matter. However...after 20+ years in this field, the lack of pay increases and the low respect have taken their toll. One of my co workers calls us "plankton" because we are so vital to the food chain, yet are the lowest organism in the chain! Too true. Lab work is mostly automated now, which has stripped the field of a lot of its appeal to us science geeks. Volume testing is the only way for labs to make any money, it seems. If you read any of the laboratory science journals, you will get the same picture. No organized effort to raise the status of lab personnel. We have been under the umbrella of the ASCP, the pathologist run organization, which until recently had us as associate members! Other groups have tried to represent only MT and MLT, but are too weak to make much of a dent. Laboratory folks whom I have met (self included!) are generally low key intellectual types who avoid conflict. Most are very independent and work well on their own. We gripe a lot among ourselves, but have a great passion for what we do. That said, it takes a certain type of person to be happy in this field. If you are obsessed with details and love to study, you will thrive here. If you are using MT as a starting point for advanced graduate study, its a great place to learn. If yours is a two income family, you can get by with one person being an MT. If you dont need the benefits , you can work part time. You do have to work weekends, holidays, and all shifts. You do have to work alone a lot, which can be stressful in itself. You will be responsible for participating in life and death decisions...lab info is important stuff. Choose a career path wisely. Plan ahead, and dont get stuck somewhere for life. Thats the advice I am also giving my 17 year old daughter. :)

And another thing I work a lot of weekends and had an OR nurse tell me to "take your time with that blood...I am on double, triple overtime today" Yeah, right. I replied that "we only have ONE speed inthe Blood Bank and that is STAT" :chuckle