20 November 2025 (Thursday) - T.A.C.O.

Back in the day it was widely accepted that the potential hazards of the transfusion of a single unit of blood greatly outweighed the advantages, and so it would be at least two units of blood or nothing.

Back in the day pretty much everyone would be transfused until their haemoglobin level was over 10 (or 100 in new currency).

And back in the day a lot of people would get pneumonia whilst in hospital for no adequately explored reason.

Nowadays we are more aware of transfusion associated circulatory overload, and today (despite being on a day off) I tuned in to a rather interesting talk on the subject presented over Microsoft Teams.

I listened to a couple of very interesting case studies… and found myself wondering just what can you do for the best. Someone’s anaemia is causing fluid retention, but trying to alleviate the anaemia by transfusing blood is just giving more fluid…

13 May 2024 (Monday) - New Technology?

The nice people at Ortho turned up at work today, offered us all free food, and gave us a little talk about their latest blood grouping machine.

Personally I quite like the sound of their machine, but the reps are very good at making things sound good, aren’t they?

3 May 2022 (Tuesday) - Case Study: Malaria

One of the trainees gave a talk about a case she’d recently encountered; a chap turning up in A&E with fever who turned out to have malaria… despite not having been anywhere malarious for over a year. Had he been having fevers tat weren’t bad enough to warrant a trip to hospital, of had the malaria encysted somewhere?

It was a good case study which was presented well via Microsoft Teams… mind you I do feel for the trainees who give these presentations. The subsequent discussions can so easily be taken over by the more experienced colleagues and the trainees can be left looking rather out of their depth. I deliberately kept quiet so as not to do this to someone who had obviously put in a lot of effort. 

Mind you the show was nearly marred by some managerial type’s insistence that everyone listening in to the presentation should formally introduce themselves to everyone else. Fortunately no one took any notice of this (despite it being vigorously pushed)… but looking back on the talk all I can remember was this woman’s banging on that everyone should say who they were even though the display screens had a list of participants, and a right click called up all the information you would ever need…
What is it with this need to have everyone introduce themselves anyway? Most people would rather not do so, and it achieves nothing but waste time.
Is this some new etiquette of our post-COVID age?

16 December 2019 (Monday) - Paperless

A rather interesting talk. It has been proposed that our department no longer issue printed laboratory results unless there is a valid reason to do so.

With the vast majority of laboratory users being able to access lab results electronically, a paper result is slower and more costly and involves far more input from clerical and portering staff.

Why wasn't this done years ago?

26 Nivember 2019 (Tuesday) - CPD Presentation

Over lunchtime we had a couple of CPD presentations.

The first was an overview of the history of blood transfusions, and the second was a resume of the use of transfusion in patients with major hemorrhage.

Both were interesting; both were valuable, and directly relevant to what I do.

Back in the day I used to organise one of these sorts of thing every week. I miss them... I wonder if there would be the enthusiasm for this nowadays. But then again, it is up to the official Training Officer to sort that out. Not my place to do this any more.

Do I miss it... I miss the talks. I *don't* miss the aggro that goes with chivvying up the volunteers (conscripts)