Apologies about the lateness, This is about Friday. Okay so the title is a bit misleading as I spent the majority of the day outside of the lab. At the start of the day I was met by the quality manager who talked to me about his job, it is all about ensuring that all of the data produced from the labs is high quality and that the labs run following strict procedures which includes health and safety. The man regularly carries out audits to ensure reliability and that the correct records are taken, so that, in the event of legal action taken, proof of correct procedure can be shown. This is obviously a very important job as it not only ensures high quality data, but assures patients and doctors of this fact. This is in addition to the external tests carried out and the even more internal controls carried out regularly, it is evident that checks are a very important feature in the pathology labs. When they didn't use to be, mistakes went unnoticed and it was difficult to make improvements as they weren't sure where anything went wrong.
After this I went to the ward rounds with Dr. Riley. I had assumed that this meant seeing to all of the patients but I was informed this term means different things from hospital to hospital and that in this hospital it meant attending a meeting with all of the consultants about patients on that particular ward. They discussed current treatment, results from the pathology departments and possible courses of action. For example they used their different expertise to decide whether a patient is ready to be discharged, or if they should go onto the medical trial (something which proved very popular in the meeting I was in). An interesting issue raised was a man who was a Jehovah's witness and who therefore could not accept blood transfusions that he needs but could accept blood produced from stem cells from his brother. It doesn't seem to make much sense to me but it is a good way to overcome this issue. Even if it is somewhat more time-consuming and expensive, it is worth it as the care of the patient should always be put first in healthcare, no matter what they believe. Religion can often be used as social support in illness so should not be discouraged if possible.
After the ward round, The doctor and I went to his office and returned calls which he had accumulated during the duration of the meeting. He is a consultant microbiologist so doctors from all over the hospital contact him for advice and guidance on interpreting microbiology results and courses of action to take. As I have no formal training in microbiology, most of the discussion was alien to me, however I did recognise information from my stint in microbiology and the doctor did his best to explain as much as he could to me. This was interesting because it was the first time which I saw the data from pathology applied to the patients and healthcare itself. The doctor expressed his concerns at the lack of microbiological training of the new junior doctors, so I will take the advice to return to pathology work experience during my medical course to gain an extra dimension so I can be one less burden to the consultants and work more independently. However, just because the current junior doctors are not completely understanding of microbiology, it doesn't mean my generation will too, healthcare and healthcare education is developing all of the time. The doctor may just have very biased views as he is the person who receives all of the doubts.
After lunch I was scheduled to be doing practical work in microbiology, when I told the doctor this he laughed and said that they would be using me for slave labour. Ready for this, I returned after lunch but, to my disappointment there was nothing for me to do, the workload varies greatly which can be very difficult to deal with. I got shown the multiple tests done on spinal fluid of patients, checking for cell counts included. During this I saw a red blood cell under the microscope, which did not live up to its name of being red, may I say! Again, several tests were used for the same purpose to ensure reliability.
I was then sent to the receptionists to help them. We went to pick up the mail and collect paper. Although these tasks may seem simple and meaningless, these are necessary for the running of the department, and without the clerical staff to organise it all, the department would fail to function. A woman I know who is a nurse believes that clerical staff are greatly undervalued and underpaid and fears that this may result in resentment and unpopularity of the job. We also did some shredding, the infamous work experience task, which is used to ensure confidentiality of the patients and avoids leakage of private and possibly sensitive information, which is entrusted to the department by the patient and doctor.
I am so glad I have had the opportunity to carry out my work experience here and will remember and apply all of the lessons learnt. It can be difficult to think of finite lessons learnt during work experience, however it often becomes obvious of continuing trends throughout the period, in this experience there was themes of reliability and quality more than anything else, because when you ask for a test to be carried out on a patient's health, one should not have to allow for error.
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