I know we went through a lot of schooling about tests and what a positive/negative result means, but it doesn't feel right as an MLS to try to explain to them what could cause this result.

f it's something as straightforward as a high ammonia on a specimen that probably wasn't processed correctly, I could explain that to them but anything more than that, I feel like I could get in hot water.

What are your thoughts on the cell on the left. I'd say definite skiptocute for digging purposes though I think it might be a seg with a monolobed nucleus.

This don't look pretty mature to me... Pretty immature, imo...

Wish me luck 🥲

I did a peritoneal fluid tonight. I got about 150 wbcs. I cytofuged down my cells w a drop of albumin and stained my cells on our automatic stainer. We have to change the stain daily, which I did this morning. However, after staining my wbcs we’re so heavily stained I couldn’t read the cells to do a proper diff. Has anyone else had that problem? How did you fix it?

I’ve been at my current workplace for 4 years (a reference lab) and as the years go by they seem to get more money hungry and take on clients without being prepared for the increased volume. Needless to say, we’re suffering for it. There’s questionable quality procedures, employees are making mistakes because they’re being pushed to be faster, and we were essentially told it was out of our hands and volume would keep growing despite not being able to handle it at where it already is. Our instruments can’t handle what we get so they break all the time and their solution is to get more and try to avoid hiring new employees because things are becoming more automated… I don’t think the people who said that realize we review questionable results and keep the instruments going by replacing reagents and fluids. I love the idea of the job and have a genuine interest in it, I wouldn’t be a lead now if I didn’t, but I’m already looking into going back to school for something else. Is it the same way in a hospital, or is it less of a business environment? This feels very corrupt and it disgusts me.

Hey guys What would be the possible Root causes and Corrective actions for increased clotted samples from the ward. Thank you

This is just mainly a rant about rudeness from nurses when I’m just following policy.

So the other night at work during morning run I’m in chemistry and pulled tubes out of the spinner when I noticed two tubes looked like it had a lab label that had been pulled off underneath the patients registration sticker label. When patients are a line draw, we give the nurses labels that only lab can print out for morning run so they know what to draw. The same nurse had these two patients which were also both line draws.

I pulled back the registration sticker on one of the tubes to try to see if I could uncover any patient info from the lab label to see if these tubes were possibly mixed up and the nurse tried relabeling before bringing to us. Lo and behold, I’m able to see a DOB on the lab label that DID NOT match the DOB on the registration sticker but did match the other tubes registration label so obviously these tubes were mixed up.

I walk over to heme to let my partner know the tubes were mislabeled and she had just released the CBC results since there were no deltas or flags. She calls the floor and asks to speak with the nurse and tells her that we know these tubes were mislabeled and we will be canceling the tests and need a redraw. The nurse has the audacity to say “but I fixed them before bringing them to y’all and I can already see the CBC results were released” 🙃

Coworker says idc, it’s a known mislabel so I’m canceling the tests and need a redraw. Nurse hangs up on my coworker immediately after that. Coworker cancels the tests and calls the charge nurse of the floor to talk about the situation and how rude the nurse was but the charge nurse takes the nurses side and said “well we printed off the results to have before you canceled the tests so we can have them and we won’t be redrawing, get the phlebs to do it”

Just why would you want results that you KNOW aren’t for the right patient??? Why be rude to us when we catch your mistake???? This is the second time this month alone I’ve caught mislabeled tubes from that floor.

I filed a patient safety report on that charge nurse and nurse and emailed my supervisor about the situation. I know lab is probably gonna be shit talked by that floor and hated but idc, they can hate us all they want if it means patient safety is upheld.

PBS on a pt with no previous history. Sent for path review. Thoughts?

urine sample in HPO pH 6 SG 1025 Ketones 2+

are those WBCs?

I really want a digital image of my own blood smear but how do I get one? Like I want to pay someone to do this for me but I can’t find this service anywhere? ((Uk))

Was it a crowd source type thing? Anyone could add cells? Select few? No one? I am going to be intimately in olved in getting cella vision running in our lab and I'm looking for input. So far, I have taken verified (immunophenotyped or flow) weird cells and added them to the reference library. For example, I scanned a verified positive Mono test and uploaded the missing lymphs to the 'Variant lymph' category.

I'm looking for dos and don't s.

In our lab, our greatest deficiency seems to be differentiating blasts from variant lymphs .face palm. . What about y'all?

i don’t even know how this happened, the person who loaded it saw it broke and sat back down for half an hour to shop online and i had to deal with it.

i can’t brute force it out without breaking that sample probe (i’m assuming that’s what it is) and restarting it didn’t make it go out and move the lane back. i already called service and left a message but i figured i’d see if yall ever saw this and got it to unfuck itself. or if im just stupid and it’s something really easy.

Graduated in 2023, have about 3 years research lab experience and 2 years veterinary experience. Currently a vet tech $19/hr

I have 90k student debt which is my biggest problem right now.

I love what I do, but I need to make more money to live. I have hopes and dreams within the veterinary field but I’m never going to be able to accomplish them if I’m broke forever.

Im thinking of doing a 1 year online MLS program so I can get a higher paying job, but that’s even more debt which worries me. Also applying to APHL fellowships. I love lab work and veterinary diagnostics is eventually where I’d like to be, but right now I just need to build on my existing skills and make more money.

If anyone has ideas please share your advice!!

pt came into ER today and was found to have a blood glucose of 1486 🥲 urine glucose was also >=1000 and poor pt had a body temp of 93°F. currently awaiting hba1c and beta-hydroxybutyrate as those are sent out. pt is still alive and surprisingly not in a coma.

edit: this is in US and unit is mg/dl

Don’t know this patient’s history but do these lymphs show a soccer ball like appearance? If so, is this indicative of anything? This diff had 84% lymphs and a ton of smudge cells.

Hello, I am a new grad MLT with a four year degree in cellular molecular biology (wanted to be a doctor). What should I look forward to making? I want to work and get my MLS, but need to make sure I can pay my bills

As the title says, this is my 2nd week of training in heme and pretty much overwhelmed. Mostly cell morpholohy, IG’s and Blasts. Do you guys have any tips for me?

I just started working and we also do phlebotomy. We were swamped and i was just trying to get tasks done as much as i could and make the line shorter. Theres a stat test for INR and i was trying to get more samples from others before i send it but didnt realize its been 45 mins since i took it.

It wasnt accepted at the lab because they said its been almost 1 hour already and it should have been sent right away to be centrifuged. I know this but it just missed it because i got overwhelmed with tasks. The leader also told me that I should have sent it right away regardless since it was stat.

I feel really bad and i feel like if i make small mistakes like this, will i ever be good at my job? I need advice

Is anyone currently in the georgian college mlbt program? Can you tell me more about it? # of Lecture and lab schedule you had etc

I want your experience to help me solve this problem. (Code erreur :34-01-03)

changed all the cards, but the problem still persists.

i’m having trouble differentiating myeloid (promyelocyte, myelocyte) vs prolymphocyte, lymphoblasts 🥲 would be grateful if anyone can give advice on this because the more i look into the smears, the more they all look the same 😭