14 April 2026 (Tuesday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise. It presented me with two cases:

 

78080 – a thirty year old woman in the haematology clinic needing two units of irradiated blood.

The sample label had no NHS number or hospital number so I rejected it.

 

33345 – an eighty-nine year old chap in out-patients needing group and save.

He grouped as O Rh(D) Negative with antibody screen positive in cells 1 and 2. I performed antibody panels.

The enzyme and IAT panels were positive in cells 1, 2, 3 and 4 corresponding with anti-C and anti-D but not excluding anti-Cw

 

I got the thumbs-up

12 April 2026 (Sunday) - A Giant Platelet

Well, there’s a giant platelet but you get them in all sorts of conditions.
Here’s a few words about Bernard-Soulier syndrome.
 

12 April 2026 (Sunday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for a BTLP-TACT exercise I suppose… I was presented with one sample – a ninety-five year old chap with beta thalassaemia needing two units of blood.

He grouped as A Rh(D) Positive with antibody screen positive in cells 1 and 3. I performed antibody panels.

The IAT panel was positive in cells  1, 3, 6, 9 and 10 corresponding with anti-Fy(a)

The enzyme panel was negative throughout.

 

I selected two units of A Rh(D) Positive Fy(a) negative blood

 

I got the green light…

10 April 2026 (Friday) - Iron

 

I found this picture on one of the work-related Facebook groups I follow…

9 April 2026 (Thursday) - Infection Control e-learning

I did my infection control e-learning today. Infection control, health and safety, it’s all a load of old tosh, isn’t it…

 

I can remember being told (by a senior biochemist) to sharpen my pencil with a scalpel blade, and chopping a lump off of my finger.

I can remember watching senior staff charging round the (now bulldozed) biochemistry department chasing each other with water pistols filled with Schiff’s reagent.

I can remember senior staff playing cricket in the (now bulldozed) microbiology department and sending petri dishes flying.

I can remember when I first started as an apprentice blood tester being told to seriously consider not joining the works pension scheme as I was told that (at that time) the average blood tester died three years before collecting their pension.

And I can remember the face of a friend who died from a rather rare type of brain tumour… the lab where she worked used to make thromboplastin from human brain. Four of them in the same lab died of the very same type of tumour within a few weeks of each other…

 

I sometimes take a deep breath when the trainees put on their gloves and goggles, but they are right to do so.

For all that I grumble about recent changes in the workplace, some have been for the better.

7 April 2026 (Tuesday) - Fritsma Factor Update

 The Fritsma Factor newsletter arrived today. As always it is a very useful source of CPD…

6 April 2026 (Monday) - Granulocyte Transfusions

Granulocyte transfusions – good or bad? I’d never experienced them in practice until a few years ago…
It would seem that the jury is still out on their efficacity