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.

29 June 2025 (Sunday) - Infection Control e-learning

I did my infection control e-learning today. All a tad dull, all a tad basic… all incredibly important. It’s so easy to belittle this sort of thing. I’m reminded of an old English teacher who fifty years ago insisted we all learned proverbs. One of them was “familiarity breeds contempt”. Something of which I should be aware.

20 June 2025 (Friday) - Fire Safety e-learrning

 I did my fire safety e-learning today. A refresher is always useful…

4 April 2025 (Friday) - e-learning

I did some e-learning today

• Health Safety & Welfare
• Non Clinical Moving & Handling E-learning
• Safeguarding Children and Adults Level 1 Non Clinical E-learning

Bearing in mind how my back aches, the moving and handling was useful.

11 March 2025 (Tuesday) - e-learning

Today I was tasked with supervising one of the trainees… well, not so much supervising as being there if he needed me. As he cracked on (very competently) I took the opportunity to catch up on my e-learning. I got quite a bit done:

 

• Sexual misconduct in the Workplace
• Resus training
• NHS Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Training
• Equality & diversity

 

I got 100% on sexual misconduct in the Workplace… is that good or bad?

29 January 2025 (Wednesday) - e-learning

I did some refresher e-learning today.

Essentials of Patient Safety which was rather dull, and Information Governance which winds me up. In many ways information governance is so simple in theory. Just keep your trap shut and don't blab confidential information. In practice we hear about breaches all the time in newspapers which bend over backwards to highlight any such balls-ups. Clearly we need to be reminded of the need. Am I being hopelessly reactionary in thinking we shouldn’t be?

29 October 2024 (Tuesday) - GMP e-learning

I did my Good Manufacturing Practice e-learning today. A useful little refresher…

5 September 2024 (Thursday) - TACO

I watched a little video about TACO today…

 

Transfusion-Associated Circulatory Overload (TACO) is defined as acute or worsening respiratory compromise and/or acute or worsening pulmonary oedema during or up to 12 hours of transfusion, with additional features including cardiovascular system changes not explained by the patient’s underlying medical condition.

 

It’s not rocket science – if you stuff anything into a system of fluids being pumped about, that pump is going to have to work harder.

There’s an interesting article about the matter here.

 

15 April 2024 (Monday) - e-Learning

 

I did my Infection Control and Information Governance e-learning today. I passed both... as well I might.

9 May 2023 (Tuesday) - Fire Safety e-Learning

 

I did my fire safety e-learning refresher today. It is easy to be blase and sarcastic about fire safety… until you find yourself watching your dog burn to death.

I got full marks…

3 October 2022 (Monday) - Information Governance

I did my Information Governance e-learning today. It was very straight forward, and all rather obvious really.

“Information Governance” scares a lot of people... purely because of the big words. If it were called “Privacy” or “Confidentiality” or “keeping your trap shut” people would be a lot less frightened of the topic, and more prepared to discuss it openly.

I can remember back in the day a particular manager getting her own way in absolutely every single issue because she would announce that dissenting points of view raised “governance issues” and no one was confident enough to tell her she was just playing on everyone’s ignorance of the big word.

14 September 2022 (Wednesday) - e-learning

I did some e-learning today. “Safe Transfusion Practice” and “GMP”. The final quizzes are a tad confusing… “which of the following are true..”, “which of the following are false..” True or false… choose one for us to select; it gets confusing otherwise. And the multiple choice questions… giving one correct answer and three frankly ridiculous ones… seriously?
I passed… obviously. But as an educational tool I must question its use.