28 November 2019 (Thursday) - MCV

One of the trainees spotted this today. A patient’s MCV had changed by about ten per cent overnight. Whilst it was a “normal” result, it shouldn’t do that.

We had a really good chat about why this might have been. Did we have the right sample? Had the wrong patient been bled? Were the analysers working properly?

It turned out the sample was over a day old.

I quite like these little ad-hoc teaching sessions.

27 November 2019 (Wednesday) - Transfusion Evidence Alert

The nice people at the Transfusion Evidence Alert sent their email today. As always there was far too much for me to read in one sitting. Iron levels and tranexamic acid were something of a theme in today’ instalment, but my eye was caught by one article which was calling for some formal procedure for the evacuation of injured astronauts from orbit to hospitals.

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

27 November 2019 (Wednesday) - Too Pedantic?

Here’s something to make you sit up and take notice. Making sure that we’ve got the right blood sample is crucial. I have has to reject blood samples so many times because the name on the label doesn’t match the name on the form, or the date of birth is wrong, or the hospital number is one digit awry. And so many times I’ve had to argue with the person who took the blood sample.

Sometimes I wonder if I am being just too pedantic. And then I read about the recent case in America. There were to women in the same hospital. They had the same name and a similar date of birth.

One person got the kidney transplant which had been intended for the other.

I shall carry on being pedantic.