Wrong Place, Wrong Time

You know, I'm really hoping tonight I won't be verbally harassed by a doctor or nurse. That would be really nice. This morning was the second time in as many nights I've had to listen to crap from someone with a fancier/more respected degree than mine.

Yesterday it was a particular hematological stain that was wanted as soon as possible because 'the patient is waiting to go home'. Don't *ever* call down to the lab and give that as the reason to hurry up with a test. All the patients want to go home. We ALL frigging want to go home. One of these times I'll have the cojones to ask what result I would have to enter to make the patient STAY. This particular doc figured the more times she called me to check how the stain was going, the faster I would get it done. Mmmmm-hmmm. Yes, let me drop everything else to do this complicated stain and count thousands of cells for a procedure where it is written policy that we have a 24-HOUR TURNAROUND TIME ON. Coming right up. I'll get right on it. Meanwhile tests that are actually Stat can wait, my coworkers can drown in a sea of morning work and have meltdowns because of a partially nonfunctioning instrument (none other than my baby, the DxCi). Needless to say, my energies were needed elsewhere. But I got the stain done in 2 hours, pretty much the amount of time I told the doc it would take. And stayed overtime to get the useless test done, too. Hallmark of a good tech: you touch it/take the phone call/discover the problem--you own it.

This morning, it was just sheer dumb luck I was standing in the Chemistry department discussing yet another problem with my baby with the senior Chemistry tech (this morning it was a blocked probe), and the department phone rang. Sparing her from picking up the phone (she's stressed to the edge right now and doing her level best to get told to take sick leave) so she could change out the probe, I got treated to a lengthy profanity-laced complaint from a doctor about a result we'd entered on a pleural fluid. "'Less than 6'?! What kind of a result is that? That's nuts!! This is bullsh**! That doesn't tell me if it's an exudate or transudate! The perfusionists are going to be all over your asses! This is bullsh**!! I'm having all future body fluid lab orders sent out!" was just a small fraction of what came out of the phone. Since I was not really 'there' any more (this was a half hour after I was supposed to be in my truck and exiting the hospital parking lot), that made it easy to just nod and make appropriately concerned noises into the phone, reiterate we had just begun using new instrumentation, see if there had been a result entry mistake, take down names and medical record numbers and promise to look into the matter.

Which I did. To a point. But this third shift monkey isn't paid to handle that kind of issue. The pathologists are. And they don't stroll in until much later in the morning. So I made my exit from the building, and made good on a rendezvous with an Arbor Brewing Co. Espresso Love Stout Tim brought home for me the other day.

Sadly, it's all consumed now. It was delightful. Want more....