20 June 2026 (Saturday) - End of an Era?

I’ve not written anything here for two weeks – I’ve been on holiday. And whilst I wasn’t looking one of my major sources of CPD has gone belly-up.

Every so often there would be a work-related post appearing on the Lablogatory blog which I could sometimes use here on my personal continuing professional development. Naively I always thought the site was created by volunteers. It turns out that those producing material for the site were being paid to do so, and the money has dried up. My CPD blog is open to all, and a surprising amount of people seem to refer to it. Am I wrong in providing this for free? Personally I don’t think so.

21 March 2025 (Friday) - Reticulocytes

The nice people at Lablogatory sent their update today – some case studies based on reticulocyte scattergrams. In theory this sort of thing is an invaluable diagnostic tool. In practice the computer systems of most labs aren’t up to dealing with the graphical information the scattergrams provide.

15 January 2025 (Wednesday) - Mobile Phones

The nice people at Lablogatory sent out their update today. This one was posed an interesting dilemma… Interesting in that is it actually a dilemma. The chap writing the article said “one thing I’d like to solve is the issue we see in the lab regarding the use of cell phones and other personal electronic devices. What options do we have as lab leaders?…”

 

Back in the day when I was a manager I was under strict orders that they were utterly and completely banned without question. The chap who gave me that order was always walking round fiddling on his mobile.

I found myself reflecting on the attitudes to mobile devices I’ve seen from managers over the years. Many are relaxed about them. Some would rather people didn’t have them in their pockets but see them as a necessary evil and a way of keeping people sweet. And others would quite happily let staff stand round idly chatting for up to half an hour but would go hysterical at the sight of a mobile phone.

 

The fellow writing the article then went on to say “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”. That was always my attitude, but I’m not a manager any more.

Personally I have my phone in my pocket all the time. If I get a message, my watch shows me a synopsis. Sometimes I need to deal with the message right away; other times not. Most people seem to do this these days. I don’t see this as an issue.

Am I wrong?

11 December 2024 (Wednesday) - It's Important !!!

Sometimes it is easy to forget exactly what it is we do for a living. Not so much the aspect that people’s well-being depends on us getting the answer right, but what we actually do. What we test. And where it comes from.

Many years ago one of the young ladies with whom I went to college died of a brain tumour. A rather obscure one which accounts for less than one per cent of all types of brain tumours. And three of the people she worked with at the time died of exactly the same sort of tumour.

Nothing was ever proved – things were different back then. When asking for a pencil sharpener in my first place of work I was given a scalpel.

When I first started I was advised to take out the works pension but the chap advising me to do so openly admitted that he did so because he was under orders to do so. He implied a pension was a waste of money and claimed that (at that time) the average person doing the job died three years before collecting their pension from something nasty they contracted doing the job.

Was he right? I’ve never fact-checked what he said. But this brings today’s missive from the nice people at Lablogatory into focus. Don’t roll your eyes at health and safety. It’s important.

17 October 2024 (Thursday) - DIC Case Study

The nice people at Lablogatory sent a rather good case study about DIC today. You can read it by clicking here.

It was a rather good refresher…

17 April 2024 (Wednesday) - The Good Old Days ?

On the week when I (finally) got hold of my pension the nice people at Lablogatory sent their update somewhat co-incidentally reminiscing about the good old days.

I remember the good old days. I originally wrote a diatribe about how things were so much better forty years ago… but then remembered a conversation with the boss at the time who said he was legally obliged to recommend that I join the pension scheme but he felt he would make the observation that people in this line of work usually died aged fifty-seven from something nasty they caught from the job. Was this true? “Uncle Cyril” actually told me that, and I took him at his word.

I’ll make the observation that had we had today’s health and safety legislation back then we wouldn’t have used post-mortem material to make reagents. And one of the girls with whom I went to college probably would still be alive.

7 March 2024 (Thursday) - Sample Transport

Here’s another interesting thought from the nice people at Lablogatory. The results we produce can only be as good as the samples with which we operate.
For example… you won’t see *that* many unexpected massively high platelet counts tomorrow. However in a few months time you may well do so. And you will have a batch pf them… the samples that were laying in the sun on the dashboard of the car which drove them to the lab…
Packaging of samples is important.

 

4 March 2024 (Monday) - Cold Agglutinins

The nice people at Lablogatory sent a rather interesting case study on cold agglutinins today. You can read it by clicking here.

It illustrates the importance of a high MCHC, but never forget that the MCHC might be high in absolute terms, or relative to what it had been previously.

 

All of which begs the question should we be running blood counts in a lower temperature than that which we normally do to pick these up, or should we be running them in a higher temperate so that this isn’t an issue (assuming that the condition would be picked up on clinical grounds).

 

And here’s a tip – when you warm your samples to run them warmed, don’t use the analyser directly underneath the air conditioning’s cold air blower. Not that I ever got told to shut up for pointing that out ten years ago…

15 January 2024 (Monday) - Fungal Infections

Here's something from the nice people at Lablogatory. Perhaps not of immediate relevance to me, but it made me think. I didn’t realise that fungal infections are so prevalent.

One lives and learns… by doing CPD

8 November 2023 (Wednesday) - Safety

The nice people at Lablogatory sent an update on safety today. You can read it by clicking here.

I won’t lie; my initial reaction was “pah – safety…” and to reach for the “delete” button.

But safety is incredibly important. As semi-retirement looms I find myself thinking about the (so-called) good old days.

When I first started in lab work there were ash trays by the microscopes, we sharpened pencils with scalpel blades (on regularly seeing people cut themselves I bought myself a pencil sharpener!), and I can distinctly recall a meeting with the senior chief MLSO (as we were called back then) in which he said he couldn’t advise me not to join the pension scheme, but said that he would make the observation that the average age of death of people in our line of work was fifty-seven, and that they often died from stuff they caught in the lab.

Safety *is* important.

20 October 2023 (Friday) - Corrected Counts

Here’s an interesting case from the nice people at Lablogatory. Correcting the counts for massively high white cell counts…

You can read the article by clicking here. This is the sort of thing we should be paying attention to. But just how practical is it in a busy laboratory?

21 August 2023 (Monday) - Case Study

 

A couple of days ago I ranted about how disappointed I was at the newsletter of my professional body. Today the nice people at Lablogatory sent me something really useful – a case study on P. vivax.

You can read it by clicking here.

 

This is the sort of thing I want (and need) for CPD purposes.

30 June 2023 (Friday) - A Case Study

 

The nice people at Lablogatory sent their update today - a very interesting case study of a haemoglobin S beta thalassemia compound heterozygosity in a 61 Year Old Female.

Back in the day I was quite the whizz at haemoglobinopthies…

3 May 2023 (Wednesday) - Made Me Think

 

Here’s an interesting article from the nice people at Lablogatory…  Whilst focussing on matters of safety, it is applicable to all aspects of the job.

We just do the same thing in day-in, day-out by rote, don’t we? Or do we? What is CPD if not taking a step back and thinking about what we do?