November 16 2010 (Tuesday) - A Magazine Rack

I get various magazines delivered to me at work. I read them, and leave them for colleagues to share. Invariably they are thrown away within the hour by people who think that they are helping by tidying up. Today we had a magazine rack installed. 

A small thing, but now magazines will survive long enough for people to be able to share them. C.P.D. in action !!

November 15 2010 (Monday) - Specialist Portfolio Questions

A week ago I mentioned that I needed to re-write the questions I’ve set on my website of advice for students tacking the IBMS specialist portfolio. Today I re-vamped questions for sections 7.1a, 7.1b and 7.1c.

Three sections took half an hour. Doing all forty is going to take a while…

November 10 2010 (Wednesday) - Glandular Fever

Today’s lunchtime seminar was on glandular fever. A useful refresher, and a comparison between what we do and what the microbiology department does. It was good to see some people from the microbiology department at the session.

The speaker had volunteered to give the talk as a practice run for her presenting at the university in a couple of weeks, and I think it’s fair to say that she got a lot of useful feedback too.

I’m quite pleased with how well the talks are going this year…

November 5 2010 (Friday) - The Specialist Portfolio

Over the last few weeks I’ve had success with students having pre registration portfolios passing assessment. However I’m painfully aware that I’ve been concentrating on pre-registration portfolio students at the expense of specialist portfolio students and my foundation degree student. Today I spent some time with my specialist portfolio students.

About eighteen months ago my plan was that I would give them a website to work from, so they wouldn’t need so much regular input from me. And since that time I have periodically worked on that website, including a major face-lift and re-vamp a month or so ago.

This idea has had some limited success. Whilst the students have access to questions and information, in retrospect I've not been fair to them by leaving them to get on with it. They do need input from a supervisor/mentor/me(!). Probably not much input, but more than I've been giving them.


Also on re-reading what I’ve put on that website, I’m not entirely happy with the questions I’ve set. When I wrote them I did so with the required competences in mind. However from my experiences of pre-registration portfolio examinations (in which assessors can’t see what I thought was painfully obvious(!)) I shall revisit my set questions for each section and make them more in line with the required competences.

However, bearing in mind this is over forty sets of questions to re-write, this may take some time….

November 3 2010 (Wednesday) - C.R.P.

Today’s lunchtime seminar was on c-reactive protein. I realised that acute phase proteins went up in inflammatory conditions. I didn’t realise that they don’t all go up by the same amounts. An interesting seminar and a very good chat afterwards. Especially good, bearing in mind the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject.

Why do we measure ESRs when a CRP is probably easier and quicker?

November 2 2010 (Tuesday) - Another Success

On 12 October I mentioned that I’d overseen the qualification of eighteen trainees. Today’s success made that figure nineteen.

The inspector who visited a month ago was absolutely ecstatic with what he saw. Today’s assessor (from the same place of work) was not so impressed.  I’ll accept that I am probably wrong in using the same evidences to both “observe the trainee” and to show that they have “answered questions…”. It’s a valid point, and I shall bear it in mind.

Also suggesting that certificates of achievement are not enough on their own (and that they should be backed up with reflection) is a new (to me) idea. I suppose it is a valid idea, and easy enough to do.

I could whinge more, but it would not be right to do so here, bearing in mind I’ve taken the (somewhat brave!) decision to publish my reflective diary. And seeing this is a reflective diary (of sorts), on reflection I need to be more receptive to criticism.

But I will say that this is now the seventh portfolio assessment that I’ve been on the receiving end of, and whilst there are other assessors who agree with me (in part), there are those who don’t seem to agree very much either with me or with each other. Perhaps we need stricter guidelines? I shall also get on to the IBMS in the morning.

But after all was said and done, the chap passed. Which is the main thing. 

November 1 2010 (Monday) - The R.D.W.

Last Wednesday I gave a talk on anaemia, and when we were discussing the iron deficiency anaemias I was asked about the use of red cell distribution widths.

The RDW is a parameter I have felt we should be reporting for some years, but various inertias have prevented getting this test into routine use. Which is a shame – our analysers routinely produce this parameter with every blood count we do. Reporting them wouldn’t incur any extra expense. And they clearly would be useful. After all, as a trainee (at a hospital long since bulldozed) I was reporting these way back in 1983.

On the other hand, since I moved to my current lab in 1984, we’ve only ever once (to my recollection) been asked to report an RDW. Are they really *that* useful…?