It is 3.34 am and I’m on the night shift. I've just had a
request to perform blood count and a chemistry profile on an eighty-six year
old lady who is “drowsy”.
It is 3.34 am…. So am I !!!
This is (supposed to be) a reflective diary by a (not very) anonymous biomedical scientist who works somewhere in the south of England. One day this diary may well be submitted to the Health and Care Professions Council as evidence of ongoing continual professional development....
24 July 2015 (Friday) - Money I Haven't Got
I had an
email from the BBTS today.
|
“This month's Bloodspots brings you an
events special. With three exclusive scientific meetings taking place through
October and November, we are sure that every one of our members will find
something of interest. We also invite abstract submissions for two
meetings, details of which can be found below.”
Red
Cell Special Interest Group
30th
October 2015 | £45.00
NHSBT Filton will pay host to this
year's Red Cell SIG. Topics covered include Erythropoiesis -
regulation and cell lines, Malaria - adhesion and invasion, Red
Cells - properties in stress and disease.
The
Uncertainty of it All
10th
November | BBTS members £90 / non-members £95
Spotlight
on Platelets
11th
November | BBTS members £90 / non-members £95
Throwing light on a variety of
specific questions about the use of platelet transfusion in medical &
surgical practice, particularly in areas of controversy or little evidence.
|
They all
look very interesting but these meetings aren’t cheap, and they aren’t
especially local either. By the time I’d got there I’d be rather out of pocket.
I wonder if
they couldn’t do this sort of thing as a podcast?
16 July 2015 (Thursday) - Ehrlichiosis
Something else from the Facebook group “Medical Laboratory Professionals” https://www.facebook.com/groups/medical.laboratory.professionals/
Someone posted the above photo. It was a new one on me – Ehrlichiosis
- Ehrlichiosis is a tickborne bacterial infection caused by bacteria of the
family Anaplasmataceae, genera Ehrlichia and Anaplasma. These obligate
intracellular bacteria infect and kill white blood cells.
The average reported annual incidence is 0.7 cases per
million people. Apparently. I wonder if that is in the USA
14 July 2015 (Tuesday) - Malaria Course
I went to London
The session started with a lecture about various blood-borne
parasites. Personally I would have benefitted from the slides having had a few
less words and a lot more pictures.
And as for the practical session… The girl sitting next to
me in the practical session was grumbling that what she was seeing down the
microscope was shaking. She was genuinely surprised when I pointed out that
everyone's microscopes were shaking because she was rhythmically bashing the
bench in tune to the strange music in her head.
Another woman was employing a novel way to identify
blood-bourne parasites. Rather than attempting to recognise salient features
and elucidate a clinical history, she was making moral judgements. Apparently
it stood to reason that God wouldn't allow humanitarian aid workers to contract
malaria (!) and she got quite irate with the lecturer who dared to say it
happened on a regular basis.
I must admit I did get a lot out of having the opportunity
to spend uninterrupted time at a microscope with various slides of parasite
films. But I could have got a lot more had I actually been able to get any time
with the experts
8 July 2015 (Wednesday) - CPD Presentation
I gave a little presentation to my colleagues today about a
case study from a few years ago in which a patient was mistaken for someone
else. Nothing really new or scientific, but a refresher and reminder is always
good.
Mind you
research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12823729 shows
that about one sample I test in every two thousand is from the wrong patient.
That’s two
or three every week….
6 July 2015 (Monday) - Massive Transfusions revisited
On Friday I was pondering on massive transfusions. Today the
BCSH published guidelines on the matter
3 July 2015 (Friday) - Massive Transfusions
I subscribe to the Facebook group “Medical Laboratory Professionals” https://www.facebook.com/groups/medical.laboratory.professionals/
Someone posted "Question
for my blood bankers....What is your protocol for massive transfusions? Do you
feel like it is abused by physicians? I feel like 80% of our blood alerts(that
is what they are called) are false. For example 1 recent blood alert they took
3 rounds. Each round gets a cooler of 6 rbcs, a cooler of 4 ffp and 1 platelet.
A cryo is given every other round. The pt was given 2 rbcs and everything else
was returned. It can be so frustrating."
It was interesting reading the subsequent discussion. No two
people seem to do the same thing…
30 June 2015 (Tuesday) - NHSBT Communication
The June communication to hospitals from NHS Blood and
Transplant came out on http://hospital.blood.co.uk/ today.
Information about the addition of HbS to the Electronic
Despatch Note (EDN), new Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (H&I) test
request forms
For Information about the National comparative audit of
lower gastrointestinal bleeding and the use of blood, BCSH Guidelines for
Pre-transfusion Compatibility Procedures (2012), Scenarios for Defining a
Historical Sample, the sending of Identifiable Information by Email, a new
Acute Transfusion Reactions Elearning Module…. Really useful stuff for someone
like me who has a lot to learn.
29 June 2015 (Monday) - An Email
I had an email to tell me “The UKNEQAS General Haematology Digital Morphology Scheme CPD Session
has been closed.
Please login to http://ukneqas.digitalslidebox.com where you can now log in
and review the overall submissions of all participants, the diagnosis and
expert comment, and annotation of the original slide”
So I logged in and was told “This CPD Module is closed and you did not participate. You can still
click through on the folder to see information about the CPD case”
That was odd. I make a point of doing microscopy CPD. Did I
not get an email telling me about it? Mind you the software’s not
user-friendly. Perhaps I got bogged down in it? Perhaps it didn’t record what I
said. In any case I don’t remember.
CPD doesn’t always work. Must do something so this does work
next time.
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