We Caught you Studying!!!!!

My wife and I were in the RTC library late Friday afternoon to get some phlebotomy videos and we CAUGHT some students that had formed a study group and were getting ready for our upcoming procedures and mid-term tests!

Good job using your Friday for test preparation! You set a great example!

1015 FOUR DOZEN (Count 'em!) DOUGHNUTS!!!!!

Friday was a good day in many ways.... One reason was the fact that two generous benefactresses arrived with OMG! FOUR DOZEN DOUGHNUTS!!!! What a surprise and a sweet treat that was! (Always helps in the lab to boost the blood sugar before our draws, too!)

Here they are to be enjoyed a second time! (Thank you Sarah and Megan M.!)

1015 Lab Stills

We went back into the lab for our "Virtual Reality" exercise, this time with the standard "five-minutes-per-patient" time limit... The time limit added to the tension, but I think that more students drew successfully today than yesterday, when we went through the "Virtual Clinic" for the first time...

These are stills of the set up... Videos of the draws coming soon!

1014 Videos

Here are the draws that I captured today... Let's see what we can learn from them! Remember to consider color and number of tubes, order of draw, the best vein, the best needle...Oh Yeah!

1014 Another Day of Virtual Clinicals

We spent a good part of today in the lab again, doing clinical role-play. The exercise seems to be pretty effective in creating a clinical feel and students found it challenging to draw blood successfully...perhaps due to the additional layer of distractions typically found at clinical sites...

Here are the stills.

1013 Stills: Virtual Clinic!

Today Simone populated a virtual clinic/hospital with the entire class, assigning each student a unique role.
After giving the students 30 minutes to prepare to play their part, the clinic "opened." Four outpatients (one in a wheel chair) arrived for blood tests and had to check in through the Front Desk Receptionist, to be drawn later by the phlebotomists on duty. Meanwhile, there were inpatients awaiting an organ transplant, delivery of a baby (prematurely!) and another pregnant woman undergoing a glucose tolerance test and ABO. What tests? What color tubes? What order of draw? What tension!!!! We had a couple of RNs on duty to help out with patient identification, IV line checks and the like. Over in the lab, our technician issued accession numbers and processed specimens while the hematologist spun down hematocrits and made blood smears on slides as needed. Finally, we had a JCAHO Inspector, making certain that everything was performed to the proper standards. A Lab Supervisor delegated responsibilities while an MD and resident physician ordered tests based on their diagnoses, writing requisitions for the Ward Clerk! It was very busy and this was all before 10:00 AM! After break, the students switched roles and continued to run the clinic under "New Management!" Later, before we left for lunch, Simone made a moment to reflect with the students on what we had learned in our virtual clinic.
We will be repeating this exercise again soon and I hope to capture some videos to post at that time. Today I took stills. Here they are!

1012 Videos

After a round of syringe draws earlier, the class returned ETS draws in the A/C. Here are some videos...

I had some trouble uploading all of these videos, so I'm going to try again soon...

Sorry to keep you all waiting!

John

1012 Stills -- Procedures!

Today after our second major test, the students worked on procedures in the lab. Here are a few stills of them at work.

1011 Procedures

Here are a couple of quick pans of the lab, showing the class working on procedures in their respective groups.

10/11 Procedures and EKG/ECG

Today we began working on procedures in the lab, including GTT, Blood Cultures and ABO (crossmatch, type and screen, blood typing)!

Here are some stills.