Inspector Gadget!!!

Inspector Gadget was a childhood hero, right!? Not at my work...Today is our unannounced College of American Pathology inspection. This is bigger than a JCAHO inspection because CAP is more strict and really digs in to EVERYTHING!!! We got the call this morning at about 6:45 am...a one hour warning. The morning is one of the busiest times for us since everyone in the hospital gets their labs done. So, we are trying to tidy up a bit, call everyone in that is off work today to come in, and keep up with all the incoming specimens. It went well for the most part. I know we will get a few 'dings' here and there (that's normal). However, when a good percentage of lab personnel is new it makes it really hard to be fully compliant. Out of maybe 100 lab employees, maybe 20 are new. Let me clarify, new is less than probably 1 or 2 years. It takes about 6 months to train someone...and that is not even fully trained...that is just the basics. I was hired in January and have helped train eight new employees so far. But I love my job and my employer!

I think RMH's lab is one of the best. This is the third lab I've worked at and the eighth that I have been inside. There are so many cool things that I get to see on a daily basis. I've helped diagnose an outbreak of Flavobacterium meningosepticum, a number of leukemias, DIC, HUS, and many more. There is so many specialty tests that we do which many labs do not perform, such as lamellar body counts, heparin dependant antibodies, washed packed red blood cells, full antibody work-ups (we never send anything out!), intrauterine transfusions, sickle cell, osmotic fragility, and aliquoting blood products for neonates. These are some of the tests that I perform, but there are many more that I do not perform. Here is a test that I want to share with you. This picture shows a sickle cell test. On the left are the positive and negative controls. In which one can you see the black line? That would be the negative control. On the right, is the patient.
This patient's blood caused us some issues. Why is it clumping? We thought it was a cold agglutinin, so we warmed it. Still the same. Let's do saline replacement with warmed saline. It worked! It turned out that the patient's total protein levels were abnormally high and it interfered with the sickle cell test. This is the kind of stuff that we get to solve. Isn't that cool?!

Thanks for visiting! I must go and clean my apartment because a tornado hit in December, yea imagine that, and crap is everywhere. Literally, don't make me explain Aubrey's blanket.