# SDMB lab rats, check in! (It's National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 24, 2008, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651 "2008-04-24T05:40:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/21 "2008-04-25T20:40:30Z")
[QUOTE=Ghanima] We’re not a Medical Lab, but thanks for including me anyway! 🙂 I’m in Quality Assurance…wait! Where are you going? Guys? GUYS??? It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it. ☹ [/QUOTE] I’m all for quality but if I have to do another bloody CAP survey this month I’m going to make someone eat it. Sorry about the warm auto, **bbs2k**. I think it’s sort of universal that when a blood banker sees the autocontrol come up positive, you hear a shriek of “noooooooo!!!” stretch out across the hospital. ---
**Author:** ![Nunavut\_Boy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e95f7d/32.png) [@Nunavut\_Boy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nunavut_Boy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/22 "2008-04-25T21:25:51Z")
It’s lab week? Is it a different week in the US or something? We sure didn’t get the memo. _wanders off to continue the workup on his new osmometer_ ---
**Author:** ![Vlad\_Igor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Vlad\_Igor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Igor)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/23 "2008-04-25T23:35:45Z")
I got popcorn every day this week, and a pizza lunch today. Plus I took my last exam of my last class for my MS degree, so it’s been a busy week. Vlad/Igor ---
**Author:** ![dwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwyr/32/363_2.png) [@dwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwyr)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/24 "2008-04-26T05:47:29Z")
“It’s an odd sort of job” I mused tonight as I was fixing a problem with a hematology analyzer worth tens of thousands of dollars by taping bits of cardboard to it. Says it all really. (It keeps dropping specimen tubes which then roll away inside its electronic guts so I was blocking up the holes where the tubes fall in.) ---
**Author:** ![Leah\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@Leah\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leah_M)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/25 "2008-04-26T12:55:03Z")
[QUOTE=Antigen] Sorry, I’ll explain. Red top tubes don’t have any additives in them, no anticoagulants. The blood is _supposed_ to clot in them, so we then spin the tube in the centrifuge and get serum separated from the cells. And while you didn’t know that, I think it’s funny that a nurse didn’t, and that her colleagues let her run the specimen downstairs three times without telling her anything. [/QUOTE] We get this, not so infrequently. Though, the best excuse about a sample that I ever heard from a nurse was, upon being asked why she had not labeled the patient’s tubes (and in our lab, unlabeled blood specimens on patients older than 6mos of age are auto-reject): “We ran out of labels.” :dubious: Head, meet desk. ---
**Author:** ![Leah\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@Leah\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leah_M)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/26 "2008-04-26T12:57:09Z")
[QUOTE=dwyr] “It’s an odd sort of job” I mused tonight as I was fixing a problem with a hematology analyzer worth tens of thousands of dollars by taping bits of cardboard to it. Says it all really. [/QUOTE] You should see the ‘this old house’ fixes we implement on [this thing](http://www.tecan.com/platform/apps/product/index.asp?MenuID=1191&ID=573&Menu=1&Item=21.1.14) on a daily basis. ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/27 "2008-04-26T13:30:12Z")
[QUOTE=Leah M] You should see the ‘this old house’ fixes we implement on [this thing](http://www.tecan.com/platform/apps/product/index.asp?MenuID=1191&ID=573&Menu=1&Item=21.1.14) on a daily basis. [/QUOTE] Hah! I once fixed an A1c instrument with duct tape and thread! QC worked on every run. That’s one of the thing I don’t like about newer instrumentation, it’s getting harder and harder to troubleshoot some of this newer stuff that simply shuts down and refuses to work until you’re forced to call in service. I’ve worked in a couple smaller labs, with older instruments where I got to work all night on an overnight shift with screwdrivers, fine- pliers, and specialized tools taking these things apart and putting them back together. Then two hours later, after calibration is complete, background checks are clean, and QC is once again within all the limits… victory! ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/28 "2008-04-26T14:17:27Z")
[QUOTE=dwyr] (It keeps dropping specimen tubes which then roll away inside its electronic guts so I was blocking up the holes where the tubes fall in.) [/QUOTE] Nice. We have an automated refrigerated stockyard at the end of our automated line, and whenever it’s time for it to fill up the spots on the top level, we get suicide tubes. See, if the labels are frayed and sticky, the grippers can’t pull them out of the carriers properly so they’re sitting too low… and then the little shuttle comes out of the stockyard door to get it but instead of the tube plopping down into the shuttle, the shuttle smacks the tube and flings it out of the gripper. Then we spend 5 minutes trying to find the tube, which is sometimes lying on the conveyor belt, leisurely making its way back around the line. So, essentially, you’ll hear - “plunk!”… and someone will call out “tube overboard” even before the screeching alarm activates. When we see it’s loading a bunch of tubes onto level 3, often someone will stand by the stockyard on “suicide watch”. Yeah, we’re weirdos. ---
**Author:** ![Leah\_M](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@Leah\_M](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leah_M)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651/29 "2008-04-26T16:31:14Z")
[QUOTE=bbs2k] That’s one of the thing I don’t like about newer instrumentation, it’s getting harder and harder to troubleshoot some of this newer stuff that simply shuts down and refuses to work until you’re forced to call in service. [/QUOTE] Sometimes our machine will just throw error messages at us. Vague error messages. … In German. Then we call service, and cry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-lab-rats-check-in-its-national-medical-laboratory-professionals-week/446651.md?page=1)