Headcount of Medical Professionals on CS?

[yuketsu]

thank YOU for doing the hard part and getting the samples xD I'm not good with people and I know how blood draws can get. what do you enjoy most about your job? what are some challenges you face?

I love making a real impact on my patient's lives and seeing them get better over time. I also enjoy being able to be there for my patient's families when it comes time to make hard decision and provide them with the support they need when times get rough </3

I think some of the most challenging aspects of my job is trying to separate the feelings I experience at work from my personal life. It can be hard at times when I witness something traumatic or tragic especially when that is such a common occurrence in the ICU setting. Reality is, many people come here and don't get better most of the time. There are days when I'm not working but I'll keep thinking about a patient case or feel sad about something that happened at work.

Another challenging aspect of work is when the family and the patients have differing wishes on how they want their end of life cares to be and it sucks seeing patients have to suffer through it when clearly their quality of life is near 0 and their family is dragging it out. I get it's hard for the fam, but at that point it hurts more to see the actual person suffering and not being able to make the important decisions when it matters.

As a newer nurse and working on such high acuity setting, I often get feelings of imposter syndrome and feeling like I'm not competent to be in the position I'm in right now. It really sucks to make mistakes and feel like you're not good enough, but I'm trying my best to learn from these incidents or think of ways I can be better in my next shift. Also trying hard not to dwell on my bad days (it's hard but that's why its so important to have a good support system by your side)

And ofc last but not least the patient abuse we have to endure, whether its verbal, physical, etc and we just kind of have to accept that its not a matter of if, but when it will happen :') Ofc it doesn't affect the quality of care I'm providing regardless, but it does make the shift so much more draining when the patient is constantly berating or verbally harassing you all shift despite every attempt to help and calm them down :(

raises hand. does pharmacy tech count lmao, i see a lot of -noncommittal hand movements- about what exactly we are
but omg seeing the lab talk in here is so exciting, i looovee disease pathology type stuff and it's def in my class wishlist if i ever get the money and nerve to go to school again

Yes u do!! I actually work with a lot of pharm techs in the hospital :) honestly i feel bad for all the constant med requests i'm sending on EPIC rip but i swear some of my patients meds never be showing up when i need it :sobs: my missing Levo bags

Heya o/

I'm actually a MLS II and work in the laboratory of a hospital - Chemistry, Microbiology(setups), and Hematology; formerly Blood Bank before upper management changed our procedures and limited us to less departments. I'm a generalist on second shift, but Chemistry is by far my favorite where I've done advanced operator training on Siemens Atellicas and the Diasorin XL system.

Hematology is probably my weakest area just because it feels like more can go wrong in a way that's not incredibly obvious. Things like, "If the retic count is about this value and also makes the graph look abnormal then one must do a dilution and then program that number into this formula to get an estimated result." XD Meanwhile Chem is just, "Oh, got a number? Looks about the same as the previous? Done." haha


Also to the nurses/doctors/etc.. Please be nice to your lab techs. I swear we don't hemolyze, clot, or delay your sample for the fun of it. v.v

I love my lab techs <3 It really does suck on both ends when our lab results get delayed and we have to draw it again, but it's not your fault! just some extra work on me (esp if they're a hard stick to begin with, i'm literally fighting for my life to get a drop of blood and they hate me for having to poke them continuously 🥲) and esp if the doctor is bugging us for the results on a already busy shift. it can be stressful ahaha

[scmarshtacky]

I love my lab techs <3 It really does suck on both ends when our lab results get delayed and we have to draw it again, but it's not your fault! just some extra work on me (esp if they're a hard stick to begin with, i'm literally fighting for my life to get a drop of blood and they hate me for having to poke them continuously 🥲) and esp if the doctor is bugging us for the results on a already busy shift. it can be stressful ahaha

In all honesty, sometimes a finger stick can be better than what you get out of a really hard draw from a vacutainer (and sometimes there's more in it too. Just gotta make sure it's mixed really well for a CBC so it doesn't clot. K can be raised a bit, but I know we've got a disclaimer comment for a microtainer for slightly elevated K levels. I would assume other labs do as well. Also assuming the patient's whole hand isn't completely swollen up (that will lead to diluted values). I know it's tricky and sometimes there's no good way to do it. v.v

As a newer nurse and working on such high acuity setting, I often get feelings of imposter syndrome and feeling like I'm not competent to be in the position I'm in right now. It really sucks to make mistakes and feel like you're not good enough, but I'm trying my best to learn from these incidents or think of ways I can be better in my next shift. Also trying hard not to dwell on my bad days (it's hard but that's why its so important to have a good support system by your side)

Maybe it's just a thing for healthcare workers to be really hard on themselves. I know I've made my fair share of mistakes and it hits me so hard every single time when I get a corrected report. Like, I just break down in the bathroom thinking about how inadequate I am. c': I think we all go through that, because people's lives do hang in the balance and that's just stressful. Even for us that don't directly interact with the patient. I know I've had dreams before where I've reported some wrong value and everything spirals downhill from there.

[another eternity]

raises hand. does pharmacy tech count lmao, i see a lot of -noncommittal hand movements- about what exactly we are
but omg seeing the lab talk in here is so exciting, i looovee disease pathology type stuff and it's def in my class wishlist if i ever get the money and nerve to go to school again

Yes u do!! I actually work with a lot of pharm techs in the hospital :) honestly i feel bad for all the constant med requests i'm sending on EPIC rip but i swear some of my patients meds never be showing up when i need it :sobs: my missing Levo bags

see i always thought we did but ive had ppl swear up and down we arent like brooo i literally had to get licensed for itttt lmao. ive always wondered how different it is at a hospital bc ive heard yall have med lockers? which is SO different to just looking up and down like 6 rows of shelves and three fridges. i can relate with the meds never showing up even on my end tbh our shipment suppliers SUCK sometimes. one time they doubled everything we asked for and that was an interesting day! never feel ashamed abt the requests tho thats what we're here for! <3

the imposter syndrome is so real too, granted i am a noob (been a tech for like 2 ish years), i try not to let it get to me but i still get a lil surprised when i get good reviews and reports. blessed with high charisma stat irl

[ho11is]

hi im a medical technologist :D im a generalist so i do it all, like microbiology/immunology, hematology, chemistry, and my fave is da blood bank :3 i got my degree in medical lab science a few years ago and i love this field so much :~)

[scmarshtacky]

hi im a medical technologist :D im a generalist so i do it all, like microbiology/immunology, hematology, chemistry, and my fave is da blood bank :3 i got my degree in medical lab science a few years ago and i love this field so much :~)

\o/
You're so brave to have blood bank as a favorite. It scares me so much.

I remember, the very beginning of the year a couple of years ago - Jan 1st - there was a guy that had a type and screen sent down for us and he had a positive screen, with what seemed to be an additional antibody that he hadn't had previously (I think he also had a positive DAT). He'd been transfused within the last 14 days or so, so I had to do an elution on it too and the kits that we have just... really aren't that great. lol So I was scratching my head trying to figure out what it was, and the nurse calls with the doctor on the line demanding I give them blood right then.

So I'm trying to explain to them that he has an antibody and I don't know what it is yet. He could take a severe turn for the worst if he doesn't get the right blood units, and they go, "No, he's bleeding, he needs it now." And so I go into panic mode, calling our on-call pathologists - of course it had to be a on a holiday too - and they call the Blood Bank supervisor and eventually tell me to just cross-match the blood and release it with a form for least incompatible units.

God I hated that experience. I was so sure that my first feat of the new year was going to be murder. XD I checked on his chart a couple of days later and he was, thankfully, still amongst the living.
I think there were a couple of times outside of that one that I walked away from the department that night wondering if I'd killed someone.



Upper management has since changed what qualifies us as a 'generalist' to include either blood bank or Micro and I ended up on the Micro side of things. Actually, it wasn't because of the work itself that I ended up picking Micro but because the blood bank supervisor of the time was..... well, we all called her some pretty sour names and she earned every single one of them.

[obsceneSymphony]

Oh it’s so cool to read about life in human healthcare! So similar yet so different. I’m a general practice farm vet, mostly treating dairy cattle. Preventative healthcare for dairy cattle looks like a lot of pregnancy checks, disbudding and dehorning, castrations, and advising farmers on vaccines/nutrition/general husbandry (technically I have a fair bit of training in more specialized production medicine too, but I’m new enough that it’ll certainly be a while before anyone trusts my opinion enough to take me up on those kinds of audits and consulting). Common conditions we treat include scours (calf diarrhea from a number of pathogens), failure of transfer of passive immunity, omphalophlebitis/sepsis in calves, bovine respiratory disease complex, infectious bovine keratitis, displaced abomasum (corrected by standing surgery under local anesthesia), dystocia (might be able to be corrected by manipulating the fetus, may go to C-section under local anesthesia, might go to fetotomy if the fetus is dead), uterine prolapses, mastitis, metritis, hypocalcemia, ketosis/hepatic lipidosis, digital dermatitis, sole ulcers, BLV-related lymphomatosis… I’ll cut myself off but I’d be beyond happy to explain anything related to large animal medicine anyone’s curious about

[scmarshtacky]

It’s really interesting to see the variety of medical paths everyone here is taking or considering! Midwifery, lab science, nursing, pharmacy tech—each role clearly plays such an important part in patient care. I think it’s encouraging to read about the different perspectives and experiences since it shows how many ways there are to contribute to healthcare.

Healthcare is so massive - larger than a lot of people think at first. XD I honestly didn't realize exactly how many different jobs it involved until I started working in the hospital.

Central supply, sterile processing, FSE, clerical and billing, IT, engineering, public safety, so many others that I can't think of off the top of my head.

[antics]

i am confirmed to start pre-med next year, and i plan to specialize in forensic medicine! sometimes i think about pursuing genetic medicine but im like 99% sure i want to do forensic med lol

honestly i am quite nervous because i am super bad at chemistry

[SixLegNag]

I'm an assistant/specimen processor in an anatomic pathology lab. My job on the histology side is mostly accessioning specimens and making sure they're ready for the pathologists, and then on the cytology side I accession and then process them myself. It is definitely not what I planned to do (and boy, it sure should pay more for the amount of precise work it requires, but it doesn't require a special degree so it gets paid not much more than cleaning is) but it's a job that isn't going anywhere and I have a nice short commute, so I keep it. It can be a very grindy job and AP is one of the least appreciated departments in the hospital. Nice to see a bunch of other lab people in the thread because you know what I mean by that!

I do get to see some neat stuff once in a while, at least. My undergraduate degree is in biology with a focus on comparative anatomy, so I enjoy when the pathologists get something unusual and show me. I think at this point in my life I'd feel weird working somewhere without a grossing bench... four years of dissections, now going on ten years of this... what do you mean some workplaces don't feature organs in buckets??

[scmarshtacky]

I'm an assistant/specimen processor in an anatomic pathology lab. My job on the histology side is mostly accessioning specimens and making sure they're ready for the pathologists, and then on the cytology side I accession and then process them myself. It is definitely not what I planned to do (and boy, it sure should pay more for the amount of precise work it requires, but it doesn't require a special degree so it gets paid not much more than cleaning is) but it's a job that isn't going anywhere and I have a nice short commute, so I keep it. It can be a very grindy job and AP is one of the least appreciated departments in the hospital. Nice to see a bunch of other lab people in the thread because you know what I mean by that!

I do get to see some neat stuff once in a while, at least. My undergraduate degree is in biology with a focus on comparative anatomy, so I enjoy when the pathologists get something unusual and show me. I think at this point in my life I'd feel weird working somewhere without a grossing bench... four years of dissections, now going on ten years of this... what do you mean some workplaces don't feature organs in buckets??

Yep, I get it! We have a surg path and cytology department in my hospital as well. As just a generalist MLS, I don't go back there much, but the DOS (daily supervisor) of our lab for the shift is responsible for putting the pathology specimens in formalin. If it's something interesting, most of us go steal a peak at it before the DOS takes it back.

When I see any pieces and parts ahead of time, it's usually because we're culturing it in Micro as well. But oftentimes, the only thing that's actually identifiable is the toes. Boy do we get a lot of toes. I never realized how many people get those amputated until I started working in the lab.