9 August 2023 (Wednesday) - Stago Newsletter

 

The monthly update from Diagnostica Stago appeared in my in-box today. You can see it by clicking here.

Sadly it focused on trying to sell me stuff… On the one hand I really need to be aware of what analysers are on the market; on the other hand… do I really? I need to know the limitations of the analysers I use and what to do with the numbers the generate.

 

Interestingly there was an article on the medical laboratory scientists Facebook group today asking for advice on best coagulometers. Twenty years ago Stago was everyone’s choice… from what I saw today, not any more.

9 August 2023 (Wednesday) - Fritsma Factor Newsletter

 

The Fritsma Factor newsletter appeared in my in box today. You can read it by clicking here. It’s a very useful source of CPD focusing on haemostasis, and I’ve now discovered their educational module.

Very useful…

9 August 2023 (Wednesday) - IBMS Newsletter

 

The IBMS newsletter appeared in my in-box today. You can read it by clicking here.

As usual there was very little of note for CPD purposes, but the first bit made me think.

 

“Become a biomedical scientist”… seriously? Part of the article said: "While it is every individual’s own responsibility to inform themselves and make their own decisions when embarking on their career, as a professional body we have a greater responsibility to enable our future members to make the right choices at the right moments in their lives".

With that in mind I really can't get involved with this initiative.

Have a look at this table which compares the average pay rates for different careers (the data comes from official UK big data sources). What I do isn't listed (no surprise there) but the average pay for someone in my job is not much different to that listed for rail travel operatives, road construction operatives and office managers. But the average pay rate of what I do is after several years in post following a minimum of four years at university and includes (frankly rather poor) enhancements for working outside of "routine" hours.

I don't want to appear negative, but anyone considering the "right choices at the right moments in their lives" must consider money and work-life balance.

On the one hand people can choose to go to university for years and run up massive debts to then take on a job which involves being contracted to work at any time of night or day on any day of the year.

On the other hand people can choose not go to university and have a job which gives them evenings and weekends either free, or paid at sensible overtime rates.

There are those who might claim "there is more to life than money". But in my experience they are either rather naïve and impressionable youngsters with no experience of life, or those with far too much money.

Knowing what I know now, I would never work anywhere that doesn't periodically put up a "closed" sign.

 

But as part of my CPD I have to do stuff which will improve the lot of the service users (i.e. the general public) and saying “don’t touch this job with a barge pole” doesn’t do that, does it? What can we (I) do to improve the lot of the average biomedical scientist, make it a more attractive career, and actually have a pathology service for future generations.

The answer is obvious… make the job competitive. More money; less hours. How do we achieve this… I don’t know.

8 August 2023 (Tuesday) - BTLP-TACT Exercise

Time for another BTLP-TACT exercise…

 

32773 – a thirty-nine-year-old woman booking at the ante-natal clinic requiring group and antibody screening

Her blood group reacted in every single well and so was uninterpretable but her antibody screen was negative.

 

89530 – a twenty-eight-year-old woman with sepsis requiring group & save

Her blood group was A Rh(D) Positive with a negative antibody screen.

 

I got the green light.

6 August 2023 (Sunday) - Heparin Induced Thrombocytopenia

The nice people at Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis sent a rather good article on heparin induced thrombocytopenia today. You can see it by clicking here.

The article had clear and concise diagrams, was easy to follow… this is what CPD should be. If only it was. I subscribe to every mailing list known to science in the hunt for CPD. I get half a dozen CPD-related emails every day most of which are sadly of no use at all to me.

This one was good.

(I seem to have mis-dated recent blog entries...)

4 August 2023 (Thursday) - Healthcare Science Bulletin

The August edition of the Healthcare Science Bulletin arrived in my in-box this morning.

It said a lot… without (sadly) saying anything that was of interest or use to me.

3 August 2023 (Wednesday) - OMG!!!!!

 

This photo appeared on the Facebook Hematology Interest Group page this morning. At first sight I almost laid an egg… then read the caption which said it was a composite made up from many other photos…

How many anomalies can you see?