My employment PTSD reminds me every day about all the worst things that have happened to the unlucky patients who didn’t know how to protect themselves. It’s time to get that off my chest.
Safety in the Lab
Until this century, safety wasn’t stressed in a histology lab. If we wanted to stay safe around chemicals, we had to pursue that option on our own. I was a few decades into lab work when the first safety rules started to be enforced, new rules put in place by regulatory institutions. Every few years…… Continue reading Safety in the Lab
TAT and How You Can Change It
TAT means ‘Turn Around Time’. For most of my career in the histology lab I never heard this acronym. Sometime in the 2000s it began to turn up in lab meetings. They said our TAT blah blah this or blah blah that and it was usually bad but why? We learned the lab should have…… Continue reading TAT and How You Can Change It
Goodbye 2018. Hello 2019, From the Lab
(This is an older post, as the title shows. I found it relevant even after the years between. Please see my previous post if you are curious why this is showing up now.) I left 2017 with good tidings. The lab hadn’t lost anything in a while. The Boy Man had been doing his job…… Continue reading Goodbye 2018. Hello 2019, From the Lab
Old Drafts that May Amuse
I’ve not posted on A Slice of You in several years. I’d want to share why and then begin posting old posts I had started back in 2018 but never published. I think I had a good reason to stop posting. My daughter and I write the Quirni Series. As the series became better known…… Continue reading Old Drafts that May Amuse
A Lab Moves
Just like anyone moving from one place to another, be that a house or a desk, a job or even transferring information from an old computer to new, it’s messy, isn’t it? Things get misplaced. Sometimes a thing will end up in an odd box and cannot be found. Good planning avoids most of this.…… Continue reading A Lab Moves
The Gift of Liver
That title sounds like I’m going to talk about organ donation. I’m not in the literal sense. I am in another sense and it is one that helps many people. Last month, while I was enjoying my Christmas feast and unwrapping presents, we had a patient experience liver failure. Eventually he/she had to have the…… Continue reading The Gift of Liver
What’s Up
I usually put up a post when something happens that I think patients should know about. I want people to understand how our type of lab can either cause them harm or help diagnose their worst conditions and help. I haven’t posted much over the last few months because all has gone well. Nothing has…… Continue reading What’s Up
Who is Watching?
I have seen the mistakes surgeons make. I have seen the mistakes pathologists make. They would argue I have no idea what I have seen because I only have four years of education while they have eleven or more. It takes no degree to recognize some kinds of mistakes. For instance, a surgeon once decided…… Continue reading Who is Watching?
It Was Where?
A block was found instead of lost this week. This is 2017. It was a block from 2013. That means the lab report was delayed four years. I’ve heard labs are slow. The block was found because we have a person in the lab that likes to clean. For some reason they decided to clean…… Continue reading It Was Where?
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