The
IBMS e-newsletter came today… in the past I’ve been rather scathing about the IBMS
e-newsletters. This one (I’m afraid) did
nothing to change my opinion of the publication. With articles on HCPC
renewals, IBMS congress, IBMS degrees and IBMS training courses, IBMS courses
for support staff… there wasn’t actually anything of note for me personally.
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....
3 September 2015 (Wednesday) - Food for Thought
http://laboratory-manager.advanceweb.com/Features/Articles/Beyond-the-Biohazard-Door.aspx
Here’s
food for thought….. so often I sit in the lab seething about what I see as the
failings of the ward staff, the porters, the drivers, and everyone else. It is
very easy to get blinkered and forget we’re all on the same side; just with
different priorities
28 August 2015 (Friday) - IBMS Newsletter
https://www.ibms.org/go/nm/issues,45
The
IBMS on-line newsletter came out today. In the past I’ve been less than
enthusiastic about the thing.
This one started off well with an interesting article about on-line morphology training. However it did gloss over the cost. When I looked into this four years ago it wasn’t cheap.
There
were then reminders about HCPC registration and IBMS Congress which really didn’t
grip my attention.
It
ended with a summary of the most popular posts on the IBMS’s Facebook page. I
follow the IBMS on Facebook…. I suppose there were one or two snippets over the
last month. None really come to mind. If they had I would have posted them here
already.
27 August 2015 (Thursday) - Digital Morphology
The NEQAS digital morphology
scheme answers became available today….
My answers
|
Rank
|
Morphological Feature
|
Participants who
selected this feature
|
|
1
|
Blast cells
|
0.5%
|
|
2
|
Nucleated RBCs
|
88.5%
|
|
3
|
Howell Jolly Bodies
|
59.4%
|
|
4
|
Target cells
|
73.7%
|
|
5
|
Smear/smudge cells
|
3.3%
|
Everyone else said:
|
Rank
|
Morphological Feature
|
Participants who
selected this feature
|
|
1
|
Nucleated RBCs
|
88.5%
|
|
2
|
Target cells
|
73.7%
|
|
3
|
Howell Jolly Bodies
|
59.4%
|
|
4
|
RBC
Fragments/Schistocyte..
|
47.8%
|
|
5
|
Polychromatic RBC
|
32.7%
|
Could
do better…. I’m intrigued by the software that said I didn’t actually participate
yet it gave me what it said I reported. Having reviewed the film I’m more in
agreement with the consensus than with what I supposedly said. I say “supposedly”…. I can’t remember what I
put in the first place as it was so long ago, and as the software’s clearly
made an error in say ing I didn’t take part and yet it assigned answers to me,
I wonder if it recorded what I said correctly
19 August 2015 (Wednesday) - Tan Tops
Chatting
with the boss it seems that certain parts of the world use “tan-top” bottles as a safety measure in
blood transfusion.
It
is standard practice not to issue blood until (at least) two blood groups have been performed on a patient at
different times to get round the seemingly eternal problem of the possibility
of the wrong patient having been bled.
Apparently
in the “tan-top” scheme blood will
not be issued until a blood group has been performed on a tan-topped sample
bottle; such bottles are *only* available
from the blood transfusion department, and are only issued immediately prior to
transfusion.
Is
it a good idea? In theory yes. In practice… it is *if* there is time to fart around like this. It strikes me that this
idea would be rather impractical in any urgent case.
I
can’t help but think that it speaks volumes that I an’t find any reference to
the scheme on-line…
13 August 2015 (Thursday) - S.H.O.T. Guidelines
Here’s
an interesting article; unlike so many other websites this spells out in
words of one syllable exactly what is and what is not reportable to the nice
people at S.H.O.T. (Serious Hazards of
Transfusion).
Another
useful page is here; this one explains the big words used by S.H.O.T. On reading
it I get the impression that S.H.O.T. actually *is* a sensible idea and not
just the unnecessary regulation I initially thought it was.
I
will need to find out more about this….
12 August 2015 (Wednesday) - BBTS Event
The
BBTS Red Cell Special Interest team are holding a one-day
scientific conference. It actually looks to be quite interesting with talks
on erythropoesis, malaria, and red cell dynamics. Just recently I’ve whinged
here about how irrelevant I find the mailings from the IBMS and the HCPC. Here’s
something which looks interesting….
But…
If
this had been done as a newsletter or e-bulletin it would be fine. However it’s
a one-day seminar. Forty-five quid’s not cheap, and it’s in Bristol
Perhaps
they will publish edited highlights of the day on-line eventually. I hope so.
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