As a researcher working in a sequencing lab, I can’t tell you enough how frustrating it is to be handed a tube with minimal labels and no patient submission form. To us, the patient IS the tube
I actually empathized with that part of the video. Specimens men nothing if you can’t identify who it came from. “Please do your job so I can do mine.”
well you fuckers ever stopped to think the circumstances behind that? maybe it was a crash call maybe there was some emergency and a shitty nurse took the bloods instead..in any case i hate it when the lab just throw away samples because of a slight error in the labelling. Fuck off
My brother is a nurse and one time I got lost in the basement of the hospital he works at when I visited him at work. It's comforting to know that the noises I heard in that empty labyrinthine basement were the sounds of molecular technologists at work rather than the sounds of the dead people waking up in the hospital morgue.
I take bodies to the morgue on night shift. I like to gently "haze" the new nurses and PCAs by telling them I need an extra set of hands down there. It's all in good fun, but it also helps them appreciate how hard my team works when we move bodies around. And to clarify, rule #1 is DON'T let the bodies hit the floor!
In another episode he goes into histology and everyone is stepford smiling because the age demographics are majority 45+, they're understaffed, and it's going to get worse once the Boomers are finally forced to start retirement.
As a person that keeps the boilers running for the building heat and sterilization as well as all the chillers, air handlers, and fire suppression. I'd like to see Dr. G. do a skit for the Stationary Engineer. The person you only see glimpses of with 3 pounds of keys and access to every room in the building except pharmacy. How we are confused with general maintenance. No I'm not walking through here to fix your door or unclog a toilet I have a building control system to maintain. How we have over 5000 points of monitored data but only have documentation for about 1000 points so alarms sometime come in and we are like what the heck is that I know what building and floor thats on but what mechanical room or ceiling tile is that hidden under so sometimes we wait until someone calls. Then we know where to look. Yes we do put fake thermostats in your office there is no way to control the temperature 3 feet away from the person you are sitting next to. The building was never designed to do that it is not your dual zone temperature controlled car. Those fake thermostats work 80% of the time, placebo effect is real but the last 20% where the placebo doesn't work well, complain too much we just have supervisor move you to a different cube. For fun you should look up boiler explosions yeah thats in the basement it can take out building structures that support everything above them.
As a lab assistant: can confirm. We were super excited when the lab moved from the basement to the new wing they added on a few years ago. We have windows now!
I heard that last sentence said in the Dobby voice from Harry Potter 😂 It would appear that the minimum requirement for a lab is 4 walls and no regard for windows. I’ve worked on both ends of the spectrum-a dingy box to a nice research building with floor to ceiling windows on the 12th floor in NYC..I miss those views.
We didnt get windows, but someone decided we needed to have emergency fresh air access. They dropped the ceiling and enclosed a 16' by 16' yard in windows. We put all of the bugs and geckos that wander into the lab out there, a birdfeeder, plants, a bench. It was nice. Then they covered the windows in guidance posters. :(
And the historic introduction of a new character - "The Lab Tech" and an area no admin dares to tread due to it's distance from windows and the flower garden
As a lab fraggle: the lab knows what's wrong with them, they don't have time for self care. The lab fraggle sees your crowded ICU and raises you the entire hospital, ER and several outpatient sites, nursing homes and urgent cares. The lab fraggle requests an IV caffeine drip, for nursing to recognize that we are also nationally board certified and have master's degrees, and to be left alone. We also enjoy sarcastic stickers.
If Epic was going to be truly helpful, it would pop up notifications of critical labs that the provider or staff could acknowledge instead of getting/having to make a phone call.
I believe the lab is one of the most underappreciated departments there is. The information they provide is critical and no one else can do their job. Who else can look at a blood smear and tell the difference between a normal and reactive lymphocyte or even know what a band looks like? Who else can pick up a hemocytometer and analyze CSF? I dare anyone else to try to crossmatch blood or work up a urine or wound culture.
@Gareth Roberson I am a recently retired Lab Tech. I agree were are under appreciated. Laboratories are usually located in a dark dungeon of the hospital! LOL. Yep, have used a hemocytometer... and don't forget the "perfume" smell of the microbiology lab!🤣🤢
Kudos to medical technologists everywhere. They are the most unappreciated people in the hospital. They provide the data upon which physicians make many critical medical decisions. They are dedicated hard working professionals!
When I was a nursing student, one of the lab techs came to me and showed me a positive result on a troponin cassette. (This indicates that a patient has had a heart attack, or at the least that there is cardiac muscle damage.) She wanted me to see what a positive troponin looks like on the actual device.
As someone in sterile processing, I’d love to see something about our department. Everyone just thinks we are dishwashers for instruments, but without us, patients would have so many hospital-related infections or deaths from dirty instrumentation.
Honestly that's one of those vastly under-appreciated fields. Like, people give the surgeons a ton of credit (and fair enough, it seems like an incredibly intense job), but the single biggest difference between ye olden days of one in five people dying from operations compared to today where its like one in fifty, is clean tools. Infections kill. A LOT.
@@mafiacat88 dude you don't even know. You go down into their infinite store of niche instruments from 15 different specialties and ask for a #8 flingenlooper and /they will actually find it./ And they'll flash it for you before putting it in a peel pack all warm and sterile so you can cut someone open without giving them nec fasc.
We don't interact with you as much in my part of pathology as we've tended to run our own autoclaves but thank you so much. My mom's surgery wouldn't be possible without you folk.
This reminded me of an (unofficial) backrooms level. It’s called “level !”You’re in this hospital hallway running away from a bunch monsters. It’s very difficult to escape. Eventually, there is a real exit and I think it takes you to another level (level one or something; don’t remember). It’s a place you can warp into/find by chance. Sounded scary when I read about it lol.
Don't be silly. It would be the Fantastic Voyage. Miniaturized submarine injected into the hospitals water system. Just, please, I don't want to see the Doc in a Raquel Welch style bikini diving suit.
@@Utmanarn who would be the antagonist? neurology and heart surgeon would be obvious, but they wouldn't hang out on the way to the lab. they could save the bone bro damsel in distress, he got his hand stuck in the venting machine maybe?
@@HisameArtwork Ah, maybe they will subvert expectations? Maybe feelings bro has it in for someone? Secretly plotting behind the scenes. Who knows, anything could happen in such an epic journey.
When I was in Bill's scrubs I once ordered an ESR, STAT. Minutes later I could've sworn I heard the nearby heating duct snort in disdain but shrugged it off and continued rounds. Now I understand all ducts lead to the Fraggles' kingdom of catacombs. Dear Lab-Coated Fraggle, please know it will never happen again.
"We have no time to like or dislike, we have DNA to extract". I can't stop laughing, best and most accurate description of us people working in research as well. In my case, I have tons of RNA to extract and cells to split. (:
I work in Histology. The ear buds are a perfect touch. I listen to books, music, podcasts all day. Got it all just right. Even wearing a graphic t-shirt under a lab coat. Some of us like being down deep under ground, away from living patients. I panic a little inside whenever I see a patient, I fear being talked to be one.
Well, mislabelling/unlabelled specimen is considered a mortal sin to lab staff so this vid is spot on lol. Realizing you have switched the specimen of two different patients is nightmare stuff you never want to go through.
Ya its a mortal sin, you want a mixup on which patient has low potassium? You want them to have the incorrect blood type on file? We are trying to keep the patients alive just as much as everyone else in the hospital
True! I am a nurse and I'm familiar with the lab being very particular about how specimens are collected and labelled. I ensure the nursing students I teach know how to properly label a specimen.
Oh my god mismatched samples are the worst 😭 And depending on the specimen you then spend hours talking to various people to try and pinpoint that 1 doctor who can come and confirm and sign that whatever information is the correct one.
As a lab courier who drives to the community hospitals to pick up what they don't have the equipment to process and then deliver it to the lab techs in the big hospital in the overall health system, I can confirm this reality. But in all seriousness, lab techs are the unsung heroes of patient care, especially during the start of the COVID pandemic when everyone was getting tested.
Thank you for comments. Asa Medical Technologist employed during Covid pandemic I can assure you it was intense. We basically created a Covid Lab out of thin air, where before there wasn't even the media for the samples, component codes for convalescent plasma, and Antigen swab kits. All now standard tests!
Prior to becoming a nurse, I was a phleb and lab accessioner. I traumatized my manager, claiming I found an unlabeled specimen under the hood in "poo-corner"...I held it up to show him, removed the lid, smelled it, then stuck my tongue inside and watched his face. The most satisfying prank I have ever played....I had previously filled the lab container with chocolate pudding.
I'm traumatized by that visual. So nasty. I couldn't eat chocolate pudding from a specimen cup, even if I broke the sterile seal, and put it in there myself, its the thought....
@@ludwigvonmiseswasright4380 I ended up becoming a OR/GI/ conscious sedation nurse. During a ribbon cutting grand opening of a gi center, the newspaper captured a pic of me bent over the gurney and the gi doc had a scope near my rear. Im the poster child for "the wild child" they had to babysit when press was around.
do you reek of work-life balance? I know our pathologists usually do...except when there's only one of them, because we're a rural hospital and the other one keeps moving on to greener pastures...
idk why but I think it's really sweet that Bill likes the pathologist. Also I get the feeling that the lab fraggle was actually being really friendly with Bill even if it didn't seem like it??
As an ER tech, it's often my job to walk blood down to the lab when the tube system is down...which is pretty often. Can't believe he didn't put a barcode on. He's lucky lab let him off that easily.
Incredible. Also, the underground labyrinth is absolutely accurate to my experience. In early covid we weren't allowed to use the tube system to send covid swabs we just had to hike it. It took days to get there underground, somewhere obviously way further than the farthest edge of campus. To this day I have no idea where I actually was.
That basement hallway looked way too nice. what hospital bothers to put a ceiling up unless patients will be there. Usually it’s dim, hot from the steam pipes, water puddles on the floor, and no signs to figure out where you are, you have to use the different elevators to navigate where you are.
I am both. As a former medical lab scientist and a surgical resident now, I'm glad he brings out the communications that are very unusual to take place in real life between these two professions. (actually we usually talk through phone, mostly asking for a preliminary finding or prompting the final report.
This is so true. One lab I worked in was so far down in the bowels of the hospital, there could’ve been a nuclear bomb set off above us and we would never notice. We even had one stairwell which had a sign that said “no exit,” just to lower morale a little more.
One hospital lab I worked in was in a basement that was still outfitted to be a nuclear bomb shelter. They did clean that stuff out during a remodel a few years before I left.
I need more Pathologist/Lad Tech Lore. That 'will of the pathologist' suggests something quite dark and sinister about our lovely Pathologist and I'm here for it!
I work in the lab, and sometimes couriers from the OR will ask if I like what I do and "we" are hiring. I used to tell them about all the positions open on all the shifts.... my bad. Now I just tell them my job requires a bachelors degree, phlebotomy a certificate, and specimen processing might be hiring, no degree needed. They move on. I didn't realize when I first started, that no one knows I have a degree. I assumed because every knows nurses have a formal education, they would assume I had one too. Nope.
Reminded me of when they sent me to pathology and it was hard to find, then I had to go down there three more times, I almost got nothing else done but by the end of the day I knew the path by memory and I discovered a secret elevator that led me to a vending machine with more variety of junk food. I loved it.
I'm shocked he wasn't sent upstairs again to get the barcode and get jump scared by an entirely different tech. 🤣🤣 One of my friends is a vet pathologist and she's very much enjoyed the pathology videos I've sent her from you. She told me you spoke at her school and I tried to not die of jealousy.
I know, I couldn't believe that after that big lecture he took it without the bar code. Hmmph. They never do that for me. They'd throw out baby blood if one detail had been left off the label, even if I had the kid's' chart in my hand and wanted to add it. Nope! Chuck--
Medical lab technologist and aspiring pathologist working in a hospital microbiology lab here! Thanks for recognizing the lab techs!!! We usually don’t get as much attention (and I think that’s partially why no one knows about our major in college) so I really appreciate you not only mentioning them but adding a whole new lab tech character!
This made me miss working in the lab. That fume hood line is perfect. For me it was the rhythm of the autopipetter that became the beat of my foot steps.
I am a Molecular Genetics lab tech in a hospital lab and from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much! I have never laughed so much and felt so perfectly seen at the same time! You rock Dr. G🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
As an ICU nurse, I learned early to smile & be friendly when I went to lab, after specimen from a turnip was insufficient. Lab is all powerful QNS, Specimen not received, Specimen leaked, Specimen not on ice or in chilled container, Specimen sent to wrong destination....
If that specimen doesn't have at least 2 pieces of patient ID on it I will send poor Bill right back up to get me a new one. You can NOT just give me a blank tube and say it's from such-and-such in room so-and-so. Edit: I do actually work in the basement though.
It was always 3 points of reference minimum in the histo labs I worked in. Generally name, date of birth and NHS number had to match on the specimen and form for us to accept it. We could use other things though if they were available at the discretion of a senior scientist. It was bad enough when it was paper based and we booked in each specimen ourselves after receiving, but it got 1000x worse after EPIC arrived and we would get specimen pots with no forms or identifying marks except a barcode, which we couldn't even read unless the clinic etc had remembered to click on EPIC that they had sent it to the lab. Great for biochemistry and micro where everything is mostly automated, but really bad for us in histo where things required extensive manual handling.
It is literally for patient safety. We don’t like the idea of you have to poke the patient again either. (Btw our lab is on the second floor. Still no windows)
"Eventually, you'll reach an unfamiliar place with dark, windowless hallways. The only sound you'll hear is that of your beating heart and trembling breath"
I’m a sports med/shoulder ortho surgeon and I’ve been up for hours watching your skits. Seriously spot on with all the references to the different types of practitioners. They made me think about my time in med school and residency and I couldn’t stop laughing. Thanks for doing this. It really brightened my day.
As a mom (and former lab tech), who called her daughter my little fraggle and lo and behold guess what path she has chosen for herself 😅. Thank you for this vid!
Feels like this could very easily turn into a horror story! Makes me think of one time getting lost in the hospital and going down one too many levels only to end up in the morgue 😱 Love the content as always!!!
Well, as for horror stories: one of the hospitals here has a lot of supply tunnels and maintenance vents in the basement that used to be accessible until some patient got lost down there an died.
Wow! Just wow! I'm a biomedical scientist from the UK, and this right here is just a pitch perfect rendition of my day today! Thank you Dr Glaucomflecken! That was wonderful!!!
CAP TOOK YOUR HEADPHONES?? 😭😭 I’m glad we still have ours. We did have to get rid of a plant near our printer because it was “too porous and couldn’t be cleaned/disinfected…” but we bought a plastic 2D plant to replace it 😅
I think the takeaway here is don't wear your headphones during the CAP inspection. Not that you could have known that beforehand, but it can serve as a cautionary tale to everybody else now.
I’m currently in a blood lab, after having worked in a lab. And this is giving me the same vibes as trying to find admin in the old children’s hospital rooms. They had converted them to offices but left the peeling colourful kids’ murals in the hallways and shut off half the lights. Having been there when it was a pediatric ward, it was a special kind of creepy.
I was so convinced it was going to be the persistent sound of the phones ringing as medics call to ask for the results of a test which takes 5 hours and they submitted 30minutes ago... 🙃
this is such a potent horror experience, if it were not for the fact that this is a comedy channel i would be paralyzed with fear. fantastic job Dr. G!
As a lab tech, this really spoke to me. Bonus points if I can calm down a panicking new doc by showing them where in the devices PC the patients data is hidden 😂
As an undergrad who has done immunological research, can confirm. Our fume hoods were on ground level, but the windows were covered and the only other rooms we ever interacted with either had covered windows or were in the basement. We counted the hours passing while waiting for the centrifuge to spin our samples. Over the course of ten weeks we totaled about 50 hours of centrifuging, time only sometimes filled by running to grab more pipette tips. 10/10 I would love to do this for the rest of my life
"Do you need anything else from me ?" "No, I got everything." And just like that, the missing barcode was forgotten. Perhaps what he really wanted was some interaction with one of surface people. Or he just forgot and the data will never reach the pathologist. Oh well.
Surprisingly my local hospital lab is on the second floor with a large, beautiful waiting room overlooking a peaceful fountain. If you walk around the corner behind the elevator you can take an unknown shortcut to administration or inpatient pharmacy and you can watch the lab fraggles working as it has a wall of windows into the hall for natural lighting. If you continue to take the shortcut you end up in a cute little nondenominational chapel nobody ever visits right before you run into a staff elevator (which takes you to the cafeteria, where they serve unnervingly good food - I go for the omelet bar every week). I would love to see the lab fraggles and the hospital chaplains in therapy
As someone that works in a Medical Lab...this 100% true. I've only been in one lab that wasn't located in the basement of a hospital. However, there weren't any windows.
Working in our hospital's record department is the same thing. Basement in the far corner of the windowless back halls. Just down from the morgue and adjacent to the lab and IV prep. I have long since forgotten what the sun looks like.
The lab, compared to other facilities in a hospital, is uniquely located such that if you feel lost on the way there, it means you're going the right way. And it's always on the deepest basement level. The base of the hospital. The bedrock of the hospital - in more ways than one.
My Mom's a lab tech, an "Immunitive Hematologist." She says that she likes having the ability to help people, without ever having to see or interact with them.
Our pathology department is so deep down in the hospital, it might as well be in another dimension. You’re getting close when you start to feel the heat of the earth’s core. Muahahaha (maniacal laugh while sipping Swiss Miss)
Yep, I used to work down, down there in the lab for a rural reference hospital (in the days before bar codes). It did not give me any joy when I had to turn around whoever was hand delivering a specimen in order to take it back for identification. “I could just write the name on the container”. “Did you see this specimens being collected?” “No” “Do you want to be liable is it turns out this belongs to some other patient?” “No!” “Back upstairs. See you later.”
for a sequel you could have Bill go with a rush order where due to overwork two patients have been put in the same tube, one tube is completely empty, one tube have the wrong medium for the test required, and all the test needed to go to a different section of the lab to begin with. Bill will be confused and concerned when he sees the tech break down over all the time spend correcting and requesting new samples. Best regards a Danish lab tech
Don't forget the nurse popping by to see what the hold up is on results for a different order. That or to put a twist make it family medicine that checks in. Nothing worse than wanting to help someone ridiculously overworked but not being able to because you're caught up fixing errors.
It all seems quiet until a phone rings, the hemo beeps, the discarded identification cards hit the bin, the unmaintained hood cries abot airflow AND another runner mistakes a microbio lab for the admin. All in the span of 5min.
As a former phlebotomist and lab assistant, this is completely accurate, even down to the look on the tech's face when he's handed a specimen without bar codes
Blood Banker MLS here! We recently learned lots of new nurses in our hospital only think we have high school diplomas and on the job training (they were offended by our pay scales being similar)- yet they trust us to give them answers and safe products? How ridiculous. No, we have a 4 year degree- just like you, Becky.
The machine needs blood. To make the numbers. Numbers must flow. Blood for numbers, that is the ancient bargain set forth by the pathologists. Blood goes in... numbers come out.
MLT here! SO relatable, and I am so grateful for our lab Pathologist! Always nice and willing to walk to our hematology department to look at a slide. (We are in a completely different build than pathology)
I’m a med lab technologist and this made me lol😆. Thanks for the acknowledgment! I’m very lucky that my lab is actually on the second floor, very large and airy, with a wall of windows looking outside.
Also, the lovely crossover of one department doing tests that definitely should be run by the biologically relative department. E.g. I work in virology yet do microbiology tests. H. Pylori is a bacteria. You'd think maybe bacteriology/microbiology would run the tests? Nope, serology. The poor doctors and nurses that ring up don't have a clue, yet we act like they should know.
Hilariously, both the hospital labs I've worked in are on the second floor! Also the thing about the noise in the lab? Super accurate (at least for microbiology. It's actually quiet in the genetics lab). Half the time I don't know if a blood culture actually went positive or if it's just the endless drone of scanners and BSCs.
I think the lab fraggle needs to see the therapist, what do you think?
Yes
God yes!
Of course!
Yes. Mahe he can explain why he listen to podcasts all that time
*Nod*
As a researcher working in a sequencing lab, I can’t tell you enough how frustrating it is to be handed a tube with minimal labels and no patient submission form. To us, the patient IS the tube
Or we get a call in the lab about "patient in 1213"
I actually empathized with that part of the video. Specimens men nothing if you can’t identify who it came from. “Please do your job so I can do mine.”
2 patient identifiers!
The barcode is data, the barcode is context. Please provide some _fucking context for what is being worked with here_
well you fuckers ever stopped to think the circumstances behind that? maybe it was a crash call maybe there was some emergency and a shitty nurse took the bloods instead..in any case i hate it when the lab just throw away samples because of a slight error in the labelling. Fuck off
I literally just left the lab not five minutes before this video was posted and it was so real it almost crossed the line into surreal.
Yhe lab at Terrebonne general has windows, because Louisiana can't have basements.
Yes but did you genuflect in obeisance to the holly pathologist image in the small shrine at the end of your desk?
I'm sitting in the lab right now honestly surprised by this recognition that we exist haha
The director wants to know if you were clocked out when you watched the video.
Funny how those two overlap... and alarming.
My brother is a nurse and one time I got lost in the basement of the hospital he works at when I visited him at work. It's comforting to know that the noises I heard in that empty labyrinthine basement were the sounds of molecular technologists at work rather than the sounds of the dead people waking up in the hospital morgue.
Well. Probably both.
@@aurora.the.explorer Dude you ruthless 😂😂🤣🤣
Is there a difference?
@@TheResearchGirl molecular technologists don't have time to rest in the morgue
I take bodies to the morgue on night shift. I like to gently "haze" the new nurses and PCAs by telling them I need an extra set of hands down there. It's all in good fun, but it also helps them appreciate how hard my team works when we move bodies around. And to clarify, rule #1 is DON'T let the bodies hit the floor!
Next episode: Bill goes to the maintenance department. Just past the lab, through the catacombs, then it's just a quick boatride lit by candlelight
The oarsman in the boat wears a cape, half of his face is hidden by a mask and at intervals he cries out with "Christine!".
In another episode he goes into histology and everyone is stepford smiling because the age demographics are majority 45+, they're understaffed, and it's going to get worse once the Boomers are finally forced to start retirement.
As a person that keeps the boilers running for the building heat and sterilization as well as all the chillers, air handlers, and fire suppression. I'd like to see Dr. G. do a skit for the Stationary Engineer. The person you only see glimpses of with 3 pounds of keys and access to every room in the building except pharmacy. How we are confused with general maintenance. No I'm not walking through here to fix your door or unclog a toilet I have a building control system to maintain. How we have over 5000 points of monitored data but only have documentation for about 1000 points so alarms sometime come in and we are like what the heck is that I know what building and floor thats on but what mechanical room or ceiling tile is that hidden under so sometimes we wait until someone calls. Then we know where to look. Yes we do put fake thermostats in your office there is no way to control the temperature 3 feet away from the person you are sitting next to. The building was never designed to do that it is not your dual zone temperature controlled car. Those fake thermostats work 80% of the time, placebo effect is real but the last 20% where the placebo doesn't work well, complain too much we just have supervisor move you to a different cube. For fun you should look up boiler explosions yeah thats in the basement it can take out building structures that support everything above them.
YES
We’ll get to meet Tony again
As a lab assistant: can confirm. We were super excited when the lab moved from the basement to the new wing they added on a few years ago. We have windows now!
Yay! There are plans to move my lab in the future to a floor with windows!!
Superhospital in Montreal that opened in 2015 put the clinical labs on the top floor of the research building! 😀
I heard that last sentence said in the Dobby voice from Harry Potter 😂 It would appear that the minimum requirement for a lab is 4 walls and no regard for windows. I’ve worked on both ends of the spectrum-a dingy box to a nice research building with floor to ceiling windows on the 12th floor in NYC..I miss those views.
We didnt get windows, but someone decided we needed to have emergency fresh air access. They dropped the ceiling and enclosed a 16' by 16' yard in windows. We put all of the bugs and geckos that wander into the lab out there, a birdfeeder, plants, a bench. It was nice.
Then they covered the windows in guidance posters. :(
Is a lab even a lab if it is not in the deep basement? Can science be done in a hospital in the presence of natural light?
And the historic introduction of a new character - "The Lab Tech"
and an area no admin dares to tread due to it's distance from windows and the flower garden
Plus there's no carpet to walk on!
TRUTh! Carpet walkers, keep out! So glad I never have to stop another peep toe heeled or sandaled contaminant from stepping into my areas.
As a lab fraggle: the lab knows what's wrong with them, they don't have time for self care. The lab fraggle sees your crowded ICU and raises you the entire hospital, ER and several outpatient sites, nursing homes and urgent cares. The lab fraggle requests an IV caffeine drip, for nursing to recognize that we are also nationally board certified and have master's degrees, and to be left alone. We also enjoy sarcastic stickers.
😆😆😆
If Epic was going to be truly helpful, it would pop up notifications of critical labs that the provider or staff could acknowledge instead of getting/having to make a phone call.
Correct
I believe the lab is one of the most underappreciated departments there is. The information they provide is critical and no one else can do their job. Who else can look at a blood smear and tell the difference between a normal and reactive lymphocyte or even know what a band looks like? Who else can pick up a hemocytometer and analyze CSF? I dare anyone else to try to crossmatch blood or work up a urine or wound culture.
@Gareth Roberson I am a recently retired Lab Tech. I agree were are under appreciated. Laboratories are usually located in a dark dungeon of the hospital! LOL. Yep, have used a hemocytometer... and don't forget the "perfume" smell of the microbiology lab!🤣🤢
Kudos to medical technologists everywhere. They are the most unappreciated people in the hospital. They provide the data upon which physicians make many critical medical decisions. They are dedicated hard working professionals!
Pus, blood, urine, stool (and the nurses' least favorite sputum) all accepted with aplomb!!!
When I was a nursing student, one of the lab techs came to me and showed me a positive result on a troponin cassette. (This indicates that a patient has had a heart attack, or at the least that there is cardiac muscle damage.) She wanted me to see what a positive troponin looks like on the actual device.
@@donnaboden4762 ..thank you🙌🙌
As someone in sterile processing, I’d love to see something about our department. Everyone just thinks we are dishwashers for instruments, but without us, patients would have so many hospital-related infections or deaths from dirty instrumentation.
Honestly that's one of those vastly under-appreciated fields.
Like, people give the surgeons a ton of credit (and fair enough, it seems like an incredibly intense job), but the single biggest difference between ye olden days of one in five people dying from operations compared to today where its like one in fifty, is clean tools.
Infections kill. A LOT.
Definitely!
@@mafiacat88 dude you don't even know. You go down into their infinite store of niche instruments from 15 different specialties and ask for a #8 flingenlooper and /they will actually find it./ And they'll flash it for you before putting it in a peel pack all warm and sterile so you can cut someone open without giving them nec fasc.
Yes! 👏 thank you! Every time I try to explain being a Sterile Tech, it just sounds like dishwasher but it's so. Much. MORE.
We don't interact with you as much in my part of pathology as we've tended to run our own autoclaves but thank you so much. My mom's surgery wouldn't be possible without you folk.
Ah yes, every doctor knows the labs identity is actually the Backrooms in disguise
This reminded me of an (unofficial) backrooms level. It’s called “level !”You’re in this hospital hallway running away from a bunch monsters. It’s very difficult to escape. Eventually, there is a real exit and I think it takes you to another level (level one or something; don’t remember). It’s a place you can warp into/find by chance. Sounded scary when I read about it lol.
Nah. The labs are usually in a lit area, the only part lit in a black corridor at worst.
Try finding IT. That's what's underground all the time.
@@PainRack At our hospital Radiology is always in the darkest, coldest area...which makes sense if you think about it
Came here to make this joke.
Can we make this an official backrooms level? And for that matter, has there been a Backrooms level like that of a research or science lab before?
Bill's adventures are the best, I need a cross over of him and Jonathan!
journey to the center of the lab.
The most epic journey.
Don't be silly. It would be the Fantastic Voyage. Miniaturized submarine injected into the hospitals water system. Just, please, I don't want to see the Doc in a Raquel Welch style bikini diving suit.
@@Utmanarn who would be the antagonist?
neurology and heart surgeon would be obvious, but they wouldn't hang out on the way to the lab.
they could save the bone bro damsel in distress, he got his hand stuck in the venting machine maybe?
@@HisameArtwork Ah, maybe they will subvert expectations? Maybe feelings bro has it in for someone? Secretly plotting behind the scenes. Who knows, anything could happen in such an epic journey.
@@HisameArtwork corporate, working hard to make budget cuts
When I was in Bill's scrubs I once ordered an ESR, STAT. Minutes later I could've sworn I heard the nearby heating duct snort in disdain but shrugged it off and continued rounds. Now I understand all ducts lead to the Fraggles' kingdom of catacombs. Dear Lab-Coated Fraggle, please know it will never happen again.
"We have no time to like or dislike, we have DNA to extract". I can't stop laughing, best and most accurate description of us people working in research as well. In my case, I have tons of RNA to extract and cells to split. (:
AMEN. Sleep is transient, Tri-Reagent is eternal.
@@nanocowie you mean PBS 😂
Reminds me of my days working in a vaccine research lab 🥹 I miss my viruses 😭 moved on to medical school 🥹
I actually used to have wayyyyy too much free time when I worked in a lab. God bless (and curse) the Western blot.
Ooh, good luck. I was never good at extracting RNA...you just look at it wrong and, poof, it's degraded.
I work in Histology. The ear buds are a perfect touch. I listen to books, music, podcasts all day. Got it all just right. Even wearing a graphic t-shirt under a lab coat. Some of us like being down deep under ground, away from living patients. I panic a little inside whenever I see a patient, I fear being talked to be one.
Well, mislabelling/unlabelled specimen is considered a mortal sin to lab staff so this vid is spot on lol. Realizing you have switched the specimen of two different patients is nightmare stuff you never want to go through.
The nightmare of removing results from the LIS 😱
I have caught a few mislabeled specimens in my career usually from cbc or bmp delta checks.
Ya its a mortal sin, you want a mixup on which patient has low potassium? You want them to have the incorrect blood type on file? We are trying to keep the patients alive just as much as everyone else in the hospital
True! I am a nurse and I'm familiar with the lab being very particular about how specimens are collected and labelled. I ensure the nursing students I teach know how to properly label a specimen.
Oh my god mismatched samples are the worst 😭
And depending on the specimen you then spend hours talking to various people to try and pinpoint that 1 doctor who can come and confirm and sign that whatever information is the correct one.
@@amgoudman THANKS!
I'm a MLS, this is incredible accurate. The ear buds, lab coat and mythical status of the pathologist is all so true.
You guys get to wear ear buds?
@@SanguineBanker I usually just have one in at a time but yeah. So long as they don't interfere with the lab work they are fine.
THY WILL BE DONE.
ah hey there fellow.
As a lab courier who drives to the community hospitals to pick up what they don't have the equipment to process and then deliver it to the lab techs in the big hospital in the overall health system, I can confirm this reality. But in all seriousness, lab techs are the unsung heroes of patient care, especially during the start of the COVID pandemic when everyone was getting tested.
Thank you for comments. Asa Medical Technologist employed during Covid pandemic I can assure you it was intense. We basically created a Covid Lab out of thin air, where before there wasn't even the media for the samples, component codes for convalescent plasma, and Antigen swab kits. All now standard tests!
Prior to becoming a nurse, I was a phleb and lab accessioner. I traumatized my manager, claiming I found an unlabeled specimen under the hood in "poo-corner"...I held it up to show him, removed the lid, smelled it, then stuck my tongue inside and watched his face. The most satisfying prank I have ever played....I had previously filled the lab container with chocolate pudding.
I'm traumatized by that visual. So nasty. I couldn't eat chocolate pudding from a specimen cup, even if I broke the sterile seal, and put it in there myself, its the thought....
@@ludwigvonmiseswasright4380 I ended up becoming a OR/GI/ conscious sedation nurse. During a ribbon cutting grand opening of a gi center, the newspaper captured a pic of me bent over the gurney and the gi doc had a scope near my rear. Im the poster child for "the wild child" they had to babysit when press was around.
as a baby pathologist i get so happy whenever we get mentioned in your hilarious skits (also this is painfully accurate)
As a labfraggle; all hail the baby pathologist
do you reek of work-life balance? I know our pathologists usually do...except when there's only one of them, because we're a rural hospital and the other one keeps moving on to greener pastures...
As an MT (ASCP) for 25 years, I have been waiting for this. Do it right, Bill ... or else.
Unseen, unheard Fraggles. I burst out laughing at that. Great video.
Yep. The Fraggles got me by surprise and I almost snorted my drink. Great vid, Doc!
idk why but I think it's really sweet that Bill likes the pathologist.
Also I get the feeling that the lab fraggle was actually being really friendly with Bill even if it didn't seem like it??
As a lab tech this pretty much hits the nail on the head. Thanks for visiting the lab please come again with the fluid sheet order.
As an ER tech, it's often my job to walk blood down to the lab when the tube system is down...which is pretty often.
Can't believe he didn't put a barcode on. He's lucky lab let him off that easily.
Oh, they didn't let him off...that unlabeled specimen went right into the bin of unlabeled specimens... Aka, never, never land
Incredible.
Also, the underground labyrinth is absolutely accurate to my experience. In early covid we weren't allowed to use the tube system to send covid swabs we just had to hike it. It took days to get there underground, somewhere obviously way further than the farthest edge of campus. To this day I have no idea where I actually was.
😂😂😂
That basement hallway looked way too nice. what hospital bothers to put a ceiling up unless patients will be there.
Usually it’s dim, hot from the steam pipes, water puddles on the floor, and no signs to figure out where you are, you have to use the different elevators to navigate where you are.
@@comput3rman77 Don't forget about the roving gangs of territorial cockroaches!
Been at the same hospital almost 9 years, I'm pretty sure the basement exceeds the above ground footprint. 😂 Not my normal area.
100 percent in every hospital
As someone who is studying to become a medical lab scientist, this video is spot on!
I am one. And it's certainly not wrong 😂
Hi, my mom is one
I am both. As a former medical lab scientist and a surgical resident now, I'm glad he brings out the communications that are very unusual to take place in real life between these two professions. (actually we usually talk through phone, mostly asking for a preliminary finding or prompting the final report.
@@HsimingLiu Love having the STAT tissue processing talks with residents. :)
@@HsimingLiu wow. Great work transition. Good luck on your new career.
I've been to the lab once, as an intern. They were so confused that another human found them, like ghosts finally meeting someone that can see them.
😂 Absolutely! Great comparison.
Your brilliance is the ability to nail satire without being an a-hole to your target.
This is so true. One lab I worked in was so far down in the bowels of the hospital, there could’ve been a nuclear bomb set off above us and we would never notice. We even had one stairwell which had a sign that said “no exit,” just to lower morale a little more.
One hospital lab I worked in was in a basement that was still outfitted to be a nuclear bomb shelter. They did clean that stuff out during a remodel a few years before I left.
I need more Pathologist/Lad Tech Lore. That 'will of the pathologist' suggests something quite dark and sinister about our lovely Pathologist and I'm here for it!
Love how you include lab in your videos, us lab techs are the forgotten ones. People love to say “oh so you just draw blood?” 😢 we are so much more!
I work in the lab, and sometimes couriers from the OR will ask if I like what I do and "we" are hiring. I used to tell them about all the positions open on all the shifts.... my bad. Now I just tell them my job requires a bachelors degree, phlebotomy a certificate, and specimen processing might be hiring, no degree needed. They move on. I didn't realize when I first started, that no one knows I have a degree. I assumed because every knows nurses have a formal education, they would assume I had one too. Nope.
I was once called a nurse.
@@SecretLars I get shocked silence when they realise a Chemical Pathologist is a doctor!
Thats just ignorance right there... Or people just don't think further. 🤔
Reminded me of when they sent me to pathology and it was hard to find, then I had to go down there three more times, I almost got nothing else done but by the end of the day I knew the path by memory and I discovered a secret elevator that led me to a vending machine with more variety of junk food. I loved it.
I'm shocked he wasn't sent upstairs again to get the barcode and get jump scared by an entirely different tech. 🤣🤣
One of my friends is a vet pathologist and she's very much enjoyed the pathology videos I've sent her from you. She told me you spoke at her school and I tried to not die of jealousy.
Once it is in tech hands, it doesn't go back anywhere. No label? No you cant have it back 🤦
I know, I couldn't believe that after that big lecture he took it without the bar code. Hmmph. They never do that for me. They'd throw out baby blood if one detail had been left off the label, even if I had the kid's' chart in my hand and wanted to add it. Nope! Chuck--
@@kathleencardincpm4435 oh my word! That's so frustrating!
@@solemnbum straight to the bio bin.
I'm a lab assistant in a hospital laboratory and I LOVE this. Especially the pathologist reeking of work-life balance...how dare they.
Medical lab technologist and aspiring pathologist working in a hospital microbiology lab here! Thanks for recognizing the lab techs!!! We usually don’t get as much attention (and I think that’s partially why no one knows about our major in college) so I really appreciate you not only mentioning them but adding a whole new lab tech character!
This made me miss working in the lab. That fume hood line is perfect. For me it was the rhythm of the autopipetter that became the beat of my foot steps.
I am a Molecular Genetics lab tech in a hospital lab and from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much! I have never laughed so much and felt so perfectly seen at the same time! You rock Dr. G🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
As an ICU nurse, I learned early to smile & be friendly when I went to lab, after specimen from a turnip was insufficient.
Lab is all powerful
QNS, Specimen not received, Specimen leaked, Specimen not on ice or in chilled container, Specimen sent to wrong destination....
I'm a histologist & this is hysterical!! Sharing! Thank you!!
If that specimen doesn't have at least 2 pieces of patient ID on it I will send poor Bill right back up to get me a new one. You can NOT just give me a blank tube and say it's from such-and-such in room so-and-so.
Edit: I do actually work in the basement though.
Same and yes. I've had full blown arguments with medics about not accepting their unlabelled samples before.
It was always 3 points of reference minimum in the histo labs I worked in. Generally name, date of birth and NHS number had to match on the specimen and form for us to accept it. We could use other things though if they were available at the discretion of a senior scientist. It was bad enough when it was paper based and we booked in each specimen ourselves after receiving, but it got 1000x worse after EPIC arrived and we would get specimen pots with no forms or identifying marks except a barcode, which we couldn't even read unless the clinic etc had remembered to click on EPIC that they had sent it to the lab. Great for biochemistry and micro where everything is mostly automated, but really bad for us in histo where things required extensive manual handling.
It is literally for patient safety. We don’t like the idea of you have to poke the patient again either. (Btw our lab is on the second floor. Still no windows)
@@DrSDavis no it still sucks in Haematology, although in Wales our ETR system is different.
Word! will not touch without label. And since it's labeled after the fact I will have you sign and date it and note it in the chart hahahhaha...
As a Hematologist, who crosses daily the barrier between patient care and the laboratory, this is 100% accurate.
As a lab tech, thank you. I feel seen 🤣
so my mom works in a lab, and has for 30+ years and I showed this to her. asked her how accurate it was and all she could say was yes lol
"Eventually, you'll reach an unfamiliar place with dark, windowless hallways. The only sound you'll hear is that of your beating heart and trembling breath"
I’m a sports med/shoulder ortho surgeon and I’ve been up for hours watching your skits. Seriously spot on with all the references to the different types of practitioners. They made me think about my time in med school and residency and I couldn’t stop laughing. Thanks for doing this. It really brightened my day.
As a mom (and former lab tech), who called her daughter my little fraggle and lo and behold guess what path she has chosen for herself 😅. Thank you for this vid!
Feels like this could very easily turn into a horror story! Makes me think of one time getting lost in the hospital and going down one too many levels only to end up in the morgue 😱 Love the content as always!!!
Lab isn't that bad. Pharmacy stores or lol, try finding CSSD .
Becoming the unwilling provider of control samples to calibrate equipment and perform blind studies?
Well, as for horror stories: one of the hospitals here has a lot of supply tunnels and maintenance vents in the basement that used to be accessible until some patient got lost down there an died.
Come on the morgue isn't that bad
As a courier whose job is to go from lab to lab. This is accurate as heck. The lab finds you before you find the lab.
We couldn't do our jobs without you guys running around so thank you :)
Wow! Just wow! I'm a biomedical scientist from the UK, and this right here is just a pitch perfect rendition of my day today! Thank you Dr Glaucomflecken! That was wonderful!!!
Lmao this is so accurate. You even got the earbuds right. We are the Guardians of the BaRcOdE!!!
😆😆😆
And the Glaucomflecken cinematic universe expands once again
I'm very jealous of the lab fraggle who is allowed to wear headphones. CAP came and stole all our headphones. The precious headphones.
how!? ...You just need bigger hair. Hid them.
Freakin CAP....
CAP TOOK YOUR HEADPHONES?? 😭😭 I’m glad we still have ours. We did have to get rid of a plant near our printer because it was “too porous and couldn’t be cleaned/disinfected…” but we bought a plastic 2D plant to replace it 😅
Noooooooooooooo! Not the headphones!
I think the takeaway here is don't wear your headphones during the CAP inspection. Not that you could have known that beforehand, but it can serve as a cautionary tale to everybody else now.
I’m currently in a blood lab, after having worked in a lab. And this is giving me the same vibes as trying to find admin in the old children’s hospital rooms. They had converted them to offices but left the peeling colourful kids’ murals in the hallways and shut off half the lights. Having been there when it was a pediatric ward, it was a special kind of creepy.
Hahahaha this is hilarious! I worked in the Lab and its crazy accurate 😂 NO Barcode No service 😂
I was so convinced it was going to be the persistent sound of the phones ringing as medics call to ask for the results of a test which takes 5 hours and they submitted 30minutes ago... 🙃
this is such a potent horror experience, if it were not for the fact that this is a comedy channel i would be paralyzed with fear. fantastic job Dr. G!
As a lab tech, this really spoke to me. Bonus points if I can calm down a panicking new doc by showing them where in the devices PC the patients data is hidden 😂
Every single hospital lab shares these directions XD
Ah yes working in a lab and learning to differentiate various machines only by their beeps
My mom is a med tech and i used to go into the lab with her when she worked at the hospital. Fascinating stuff. Thanks Doctor G!
Absolute best description of finding a hospital lab ever
As a medical scientist, this video spoke to me on a spiritual level I never thought was possible.
I don't think I've laughed this hard at one of your lab skits. 😂 Thanks for giving us some recognition! Medical lab scientist here.
I love how accurate this is! Even down to the constant noises in the lab lol
As an undergrad who has done immunological research, can confirm. Our fume hoods were on ground level, but the windows were covered and the only other rooms we ever interacted with either had covered windows or were in the basement. We counted the hours passing while waiting for the centrifuge to spin our samples. Over the course of ten weeks we totaled about 50 hours of centrifuging, time only sometimes filled by running to grab more pipette tips.
10/10 I would love to do this for the rest of my life
"Do you need anything else from me ?"
"No, I got everything."
And just like that, the missing barcode was forgotten. Perhaps what he really wanted was some interaction with one of surface people.
Or he just forgot and the data will never reach the pathologist. Oh well.
I work in a hospital and the earphones worn by lab techs are spot on. Lol
Surprisingly my local hospital lab is on the second floor with a large, beautiful waiting room overlooking a peaceful fountain. If you walk around the corner behind the elevator you can take an unknown shortcut to administration or inpatient pharmacy and you can watch the lab fraggles working as it has a wall of windows into the hall for natural lighting. If you continue to take the shortcut you end up in a cute little nondenominational chapel nobody ever visits right before you run into a staff elevator (which takes you to the cafeteria, where they serve unnervingly good food - I go for the omelet bar every week). I would love to see the lab fraggles and the hospital chaplains in therapy
As a former MLS, I can tell you've actually been to the hospital lab. No windows, the importance of the bar code...
As someone that works in a Medical Lab...this 100% true. I've only been in one lab that wasn't located in the basement of a hospital. However, there weren't any windows.
Working in our hospital's record department is the same thing. Basement in the far corner of the windowless back halls. Just down from the morgue and adjacent to the lab and IV prep. I have long since forgotten what the sun looks like.
The lab, compared to other facilities in a hospital, is uniquely located such that if you feel lost on the way there, it means you're going the right way. And it's always on the deepest basement level. The base of the hospital. The bedrock of the hospital - in more ways than one.
My Mom's a lab tech, an "Immunitive Hematologist." She says that she likes having the ability to help people, without ever having to see or interact with them.
Oh, is that blood?? 😂
Let me speak for all us in the lab when I say we’re just happy to be included
The writing on this one was next level. Seriously fantastic.
Our pathology department is so deep down in the hospital, it might as well be in another dimension. You’re getting close when you start to feel the heat of the earth’s core.
Muahahaha (maniacal laugh while sipping Swiss Miss)
Yep, I used to work down, down there in the lab for a rural reference hospital (in the days before bar codes). It did not give me any joy when I had to turn around whoever was hand delivering a specimen in order to take it back for identification.
“I could just write the name on the container”.
“Did you see this specimens being collected?”
“No”
“Do you want to be liable is it turns out this belongs to some other patient?”
“No!”
“Back upstairs. See you later.”
No barcode…no barcode? Specimen REJECTED! Get out of my lab! How dare you SIR🧐
Us lab techs who are not phlebotomists are very happy with you.
for a sequel you could have Bill go with a rush order where due to overwork two patients have been put in the same tube, one tube is completely empty, one tube have the wrong medium for the test required, and all the test needed to go to a different section of the lab to begin with. Bill will be confused and concerned when he sees the tech break down over all the time spend correcting and requesting new samples.
Best regards
a Danish lab tech
Don't forget the nurse popping by to see what the hold up is on results for a different order. That or to put a twist make it family medicine that checks in. Nothing worse than wanting to help someone ridiculously overworked but not being able to because you're caught up fixing errors.
As a lab rat, ahhh i mean lab tech myself it was scary how accurate this conversation went
"It is the will of the pathologists that we mine the data."
It all seems quiet until a phone rings, the hemo beeps, the discarded identification cards hit the bin, the unmaintained hood cries abot airflow AND another runner mistakes a microbio lab for the admin. All in the span of 5min.
As a former phlebotomist and lab assistant, this is completely accurate, even down to the look on the tech's face when he's handed a specimen without bar codes
Blood Banker MLS here! We recently learned lots of new nurses in our hospital only think we have high school diplomas and on the job training (they were offended by our pay scales being similar)- yet they trust us to give them answers and safe products? How ridiculous. No, we have a 4 year degree- just like you, Becky.
I expected him to have to walk up the stairs, print a barcode, then come back.
As a current Medical Laboratory Scientist student, I appreciate the call-out!
At least us lab fraggles get a complimentary 2008 desk heater so we don't freeze our information entering digits
The machine needs blood. To make the numbers. Numbers must flow. Blood for numbers, that is the ancient bargain set forth by the pathologists. Blood goes in... numbers come out.
MLT here! SO relatable, and I am so grateful for our lab Pathologist! Always nice and willing to walk to our hematology department to look at a slide. (We are in a completely different build than pathology)
Finding the lab is just as hard as finding the inpatient pharmacy.
I’m a med lab technologist and this made me lol😆. Thanks for the acknowledgment! I’m very lucky that my lab is actually on the second floor, very large and airy, with a wall of windows looking outside.
Also, the lovely crossover of one department doing tests that definitely should be run by the biologically relative department. E.g. I work in virology yet do microbiology tests. H. Pylori is a bacteria. You'd think maybe bacteriology/microbiology would run the tests? Nope, serology. The poor doctors and nurses that ring up don't have a clue, yet we act like they should know.
As a third shift lab tech I can tell you this is the most accurate thing I have ever seen.
As someone who JUST got off work from a medical lab…this is accurate. And yes we are almost always in the basement 😂
Noise cancelling headphones, honestly the only thing that has kept me from losing my mind
Hilariously, both the hospital labs I've worked in are on the second floor!
Also the thing about the noise in the lab? Super accurate (at least for microbiology. It's actually quiet in the genetics lab). Half the time I don't know if a blood culture actually went positive or if it's just the endless drone of scanners and BSCs.
As one of the fraggles in the healthcare world, this is spot on. And I salute you for this sort of shout out.
As someone who's done way too much data entry, bar codes are an evil but essential cog in the machine that is lab results