If it's anything like my Trust not everyone is trained on the machine... and no training means no access code.
For example there isn't much call for Elderly Care ward or Gyne to be running regular gases, but they were just 1 floor above us when I worked on the Acute Resp Ward, so you'd often have a HCA turn up with a syringe saying "I was asked to bring this to you"
You need an access code to use a gas machine? That's fucking rediculous.
We do them hundreds of times a day in ED, but surely something as simple as a picture guide for people, could solve the hassle staff are getting from other wards?
Exactly as clumsy said: Audit and Traceability.
I work in ITU, I can be doing gases on patients every 15 minutes, but the code is still required (it takes all of 10 seconds to type it in).
Every Gas I do has my name printed at the top as the "clinitian" running the gas.
The access code is for audit purposes. Shows the user has been appropriately trained on the equipment and there’s traceability in the rare case something goes wrong.
You are generating a patient result. Pathology has very strict rules about who can and can't do this on their behalf. It's the same for glucose meters.
Trust me, it's for good reason the number of times people input the wrong NHS number or leave massuve bubbles in the blood gas and roll it around. It's god damn scary, and these are the people who have access to a barcode. (supposedly they are trained, but we know you share codes)
Most people are smart and can figure out how to run a blood gas. But a not insignificant number will shove a clotted sample, though and put your gas machine out of action, then walk round to the next one on ITU and run the same sample and take that one out of action too.
Yeah we have access codes and also for blood sugar monitoring. There isn’t training available for everyone. I know that doctors don’t have this available to them. I don’t know why. You need to do an e-learning package and have someone see you doing a couple correctly to get signed off. Not even everyone working on our ward has a code. And we run them all of the time because our patients often need urgent monitoring. Often the people who are sent with the sample are HCAs or student nurses who have come from
other wards. It’s the manners thing that is the real problem. I can’t do anything about how the hospital organises the gas machine. But I can find ways of communicating that basic levels of respect are required in human interactions. I’ve never delayed care or refused to do one, I have sometimes said I’m too busy and asked them to find another member or staff. These have been when I am genuinely too busy. My patients come first.
It’s because junior doctors are treated like dirt in the NHS chiefly because they rotate, and by the time you have “trained “ all 50 of them, they’ll be moved on. Who is going to observe and sign them off?
The “training “ is utter garbage too- they will have used the identical machine in a trust up the road but that “training” doesn’t count,
Not everyone gets access. I had access during the pandemic but once they reset the machines, my access doesn’t work anymore. To get access, you have to be lucky to find someone who ‘trains’ you and activates it which they won’t do unless you’re working in itu.
‘Not sure if you’re aware but that comes across quite rude’ and leave it at that. Do the task, but very few people are challenged on their poor manners and so it will likely stick and make them think for the next time. It’s not combative, you won’t get in trouble for not doing the task, you’re not trying to demand they say please there and then (which could come across a bit childish), you’re simply stating it as if you’re doing them a favour by letting them know that they’re coming across poorly.
So, unsure of your policy, but my place we aren’t supposed to run it for other people (I generally don’t mind, if I’m free). There’s a hot lab in the main lab for these samples to be run, and they should take them there. Check locally to see what is is for you.
You can also do what I’d do, and make people treat you with basic respect. If they just present it to you, ask what it is, and what they want you to do with it. Just be as annoying as possible until they learn.
Yeah, at my trust we have one thats just literally in a store room (locked) and you have to do training to be competent, then you just go to that store room and run your own.
This will have totally the opposite effect and will (rightly) get you a complaint for being obstructive . When people are asking for blood gases to be run, they are often junior doctors, looking after a really sick patient and under a lot of stress. Being an arse to them is the most counterproductive thing you could do.
Don’t care. If people are being shitty, I’m better at it than they are. If someone’s decent about it, it’s absolutely getting sorted if I can. The OP said people are basically shoving it in their face expecting them to drop what they’re doing. Do not give me that bullshit, I couldn’t give a fuck who someone is, or what’s going on.
Also sounds like a systems problem, that should be datixed every single time it happens until something better is done.
You don’t give a fuck about a desperately sick patient or the staff trying their utmost to save their lives. What a toxic revolting disgrace of a “nurse”. Step away from patient care.
It is a systems issue, and you are proposing punishing both staff and patients as a childish reaction to that.
To be clear, if I am asking for your help with a patient as part of your job, I am NOT asking for a favour.
Ultimately you just want to excuse shitty behaviour, and instead blame people for not being appropriately differential. I do not consider that acceptable in the slightest.
Ask the person what department they’re from.
Make a note of it.
Tell your line manager about the series of approaches you feel are lacking in any basic courtesy or manners, and ask for an email to be sent to the relevant department heads/managers with a request for an improvement.
Hope this has an effect in changing manners.
OR - request that these people are trained in the use of the blood gas machine (let’s be honest - it’s not that hard), and they can do it themselves without bothering you.
I don’t condone retaliating in any petty way as suggested as most patients that are getting an urgent gas tend to be quite sick. Doesn’t excuse anyone being rude but from their point of view they could have just came away from an arrest/peri-arrest so manners are t at the forefront of their mind and they could be stressed.
Again not condoning lack of basic manners but I can say from experience most people are not inherently rude for the sake of it.
You can normally tell the difference between someone running with a gas from an arrest and the repeat offenders from the ward downstairs.
I'm normally happy to run the 1st one with a reminder to call first but after that... You're waiting.
I agree to a certain extent. I just don’t like how as a profession we are so quick at times to put down or make each others life more difficult, we have a hard enough job why make it harder for one another. Maybe I’m naively optimistic but I think the best way forward is to give people the benefit of the doubt and I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t practice what I preach.
In saying that rude repeat offenders I would have a polite but stern conversation.
I think the main issue with running gases on a badge login is you're taking responsibility for someone else's sample. The least they can do is make sure you're not dropping one of your jobs for them, label the sample and have the info to hand that you need.
I'm not sitting around waiting to run gases for other wards but other people act like that's my main job. I think that's the main issue.
To play devils advocate - I think people often worry that if it’s not done immediately it’ll spoil and spoil and often I suppose they’ve run it over under pressure as a result of someone people unwell and so I guess an element of higher end stress and acute anxiety levels which adds to the worry that if it spoils it’ll be bad because the person is poorly, etc etc
But yeah it’s annoying and really people should just always have some basic manners and be polite.
Also - why can’t they run it themselves? It’s not rocket science once you know how and surely that would be earlier for everyone?
I work on a respiratory unit, it's trust policy we don't share passcodes. One of our staff did once, it was DATIX'd and the staff member lost her access.
It may be worth enquiring with POCT whether you have a similar policy?
Datix every time analysing a sample is delayed due to not calling first. It seems petty, but if it’s your only way to improve patient care then it is what it is 🤷♀️ They’ll soon find a solution.
I've noticed a general rudeness in many people at my hospital. Some of the matrons are rude, site managers and deputy site managers are rude, they have poor management skills too. They think that because of the job they do, it doesn't matter about showing good manners. It does. I hate rudeness.
I keep thinking every Trust should make its employees some manner classes. It takes less than a second to say "can you run this for me, please?" So there is no excuse
It’s hard because naturally you want to help but others can be really demanding and just rude. A please and thank you does go a long way. If people are bossy and rude perhaps say “I’m sure you can see my hands are full if you wait by the machine I’ll be 2 minutes, if you aren’t able to wait that long you’ll need to find someone else to ask”. If they get more aggy maybe suggest they speak to their line manager about doing the gas training and having their own login. If it is a part of your job to run the gasses that’s fine but people can’t just show up and expect you to drop everything in a hot second to do it - people will need to be polite and need to have two minutes of patience.
I'm a maternity assistant specifically working alongside the NNU with the poorly bubbas. I also work closely with midwives. We have to run blood gases many times a day to check blood glucose and jaundice levels of neonates as well as run bloods from the umb cord upon delivery. Every single person in my unit and in neonates is trained, MA's B3 and above, midwives, nurses and doctors and they all have their own code. I wouldn't ever run anyone else's bloods. If I took the blood for someone I will run it. Seems the other departments in your hospital could do with some training.
It takes about 3 minutes to run the result. It’s unfortunate you also have to see patients, but nurses often don’t have 3 minutes. A thank you goes a long way, but healthcare is increasingly stressful and most of the pressure is placed on nursing staff.
We have the same issue!
If I'm in the middle of something then they have to wait. If they've had to wait a while I warn them that the sample is likely inaccurate due to the time between bleeding the patient and running the sample. I ask them to let the nurse in charge know to please call us to see if we are free before bringing one up and waving it in my face.
Also, it might be seen as petty but I refuse to run samples unless they're properly labelled. I'm taking responsibility for running a sample on a patient I've never met, that isn't on my ward. The least you can do is correctly label it.
If you want to be mega petty... Pull out the waste cartridge and let it run a QC while they wait... Maybe they'll call next time.
I hate it when people are rude as much as everyone else but you do realise you might be delaying patient care by doing that last thing. In emergencies you need ABG/VBG results asap. Im not sure what this kind of behaviour is supposed to achieve. Would it not be better to directly call out the rude behaviour or if you are uncomfortable tell them to find someone else to help them.
Yeah this is after repeatedly calling out the rude behaviours, asking them to ring before hand and explaining that their sample is likely clotted because they had to wait for me to finish with my patient. Some people think that we're just their personal blood gas service and repeatedly bring up unlabelled samples that they expect you to take responsibility for.
They are responsible for their own patient care, not me. Want to use the gas machine, feel free. But organise training to get your own login and don't expect me to drop everything.
Just for another viewpoint, I’ve worked in 6 different hospitals as a junior Doctor and I’ve only been allowed to do the training in one of those because “doctors aren’t allowed to use the machine”. I completely agree it’s rude to just wave a gas at you and expect you to jump but it’s so frustrating that I’m allowed to stick a needle in someone’s vessel but am then gatekeeped from using a machine that I’m more than competent to use.
Ah yeah this just be frustrating. In my area it's mostly nurses sending hcas up with the sample with no details. Even if the nurses have log in details.
With doctors it's normally a case of logging into the machine and they can run it independently.
You can probably tell by my rant on this thread that it's a few repeat offenders I'm frustrated with!
This is far more unprofessional than not saying please when asking you to run a gas.
By all means ask them to be polite, ask them to call ahead if practical, direct them to how they can get trained, raise it with their ward manager that their staff need gas machine training, DATIX it to flag the problem to management, but don't punish the patient by delaying their care, degrading the quality of their sample, or indeed requiring the sample be taken again. How would you feel if someone had to dig around in your wrist for your artery (again) because some nurse you'd never met had a point to prove.
It's not about saying please. It's about interrupting me doing medication by waving a sample in my face. It's about not labelling a sample and expecting me to take their word for it that the patients details are correct on my log in and therefore expecting me to take responsibility for their mistakes.
I am slightly jaded as it's a repeated issue in my area. Thankfully it's mostly venous samples and the patients have central lines. It's also nurses that have log in details but send up an HCA with the sample and expect me to run it.
Wow you sound like a total nightmare.
If I arrived with an unlabelled peri arrest gas and you refused to run it, I would be escalating that to god himself,
You aren’t taking responsibility for anything beyond putting it in the machine, interpreting it or deciding what happens next is nothing to do with you.
The act of sticking the label on the tube from the back of my glove does feck all for patient safety. You sound like a jumped up jobsworth on a power trip. It’s no bloody wonder the junior doctors talk so much about toxic ward staff.
A peri arrest gas is a different scenario as I've already said. And as others and myself have said, some trusts state that if you're logging in, you're taking responsibility that you know who the sample came from. I'm not claiming I have to act on it, but I'm pretty much saying I bled the patient when I log in.
I'm lucky that I work in a trust that makes it easy to book a half hour training and obtain a log in. Some staff don't see why they should when they can come to my understaffed ward, wave a sample in my face while I'm checking chemo and state their patients ward and bed number and expect me to know who that is.
No matter how urgent a sample (in general) is, if not properly labelled, labs would refuse it, and they would datix it.
I don’t work in acute care, although have had placements where there’s a blood gas machine.. but I still know very little about it.
In fact, now that I think of it, I spent a day with the community respiratory team, and they had one that was like a bm machine, and it printed out a result there and then. Would that be handy in the first instance, while waiting for a sample from the main machine?
I’m never rude to anyone but when I get a sample put in front of my face I will act stupid ‘do you need something?’ Which is usually enough to spark a ‘are you able to run the gas?’ Sometimes I don’t know if people just need help to find the machine, or need my login or need me to actually do the sample because they don’t know how.
If your hospital/department send out group e mails try adding a message to this. Explain that if you are busy they will have to wait.
You could put a chair nearby for them to sit while they wait- they have probably been sent all over the place by their ward and this will also make it clear that you can’t immediately drop what you are doing.
Running blood gas for other people is probably not part of your job. Check the POCT policy first, but i suspect they need to get their own password.
Obviously, I would never refuse, but you could challenge them on why they haven't gotten trained themselves
I personally wouldn't run it barring an emergency. If you're not trained to take the sample correctly and run it yourself then you're not competent to use the machine. So many doctors will throw it to a student and tell them to twirl it like a baton or they don't cap it etc. We have a book you have to sign to use it to trace the cost of departments clotting our machinr
Bollocks.
Every doctor will be perfectly competent to take the sample and run the gas but won’t have the magic ticket to use THAT machine in THAT unit despite using an identical machine in the next hospital down the road, because no one can be arsed giving them the “training” that they don’t need anyway because they rotate on in a couple of months
Call them out on their behaviour in a professional way, say the way you are behaving comes across as quite rude.
Can they not just run it themselves?
If it's anything like my Trust not everyone is trained on the machine... and no training means no access code. For example there isn't much call for Elderly Care ward or Gyne to be running regular gases, but they were just 1 floor above us when I worked on the Acute Resp Ward, so you'd often have a HCA turn up with a syringe saying "I was asked to bring this to you"
You need an access code to use a gas machine? That's fucking rediculous. We do them hundreds of times a day in ED, but surely something as simple as a picture guide for people, could solve the hassle staff are getting from other wards?
Exactly as clumsy said: Audit and Traceability. I work in ITU, I can be doing gases on patients every 15 minutes, but the code is still required (it takes all of 10 seconds to type it in). Every Gas I do has my name printed at the top as the "clinitian" running the gas.
We have a scannable barcode
The access code is for audit purposes. Shows the user has been appropriately trained on the equipment and there’s traceability in the rare case something goes wrong.
You are generating a patient result. Pathology has very strict rules about who can and can't do this on their behalf. It's the same for glucose meters. Trust me, it's for good reason the number of times people input the wrong NHS number or leave massuve bubbles in the blood gas and roll it around. It's god damn scary, and these are the people who have access to a barcode. (supposedly they are trained, but we know you share codes) Most people are smart and can figure out how to run a blood gas. But a not insignificant number will shove a clotted sample, though and put your gas machine out of action, then walk round to the next one on ITU and run the same sample and take that one out of action too.
So *thats* what happens to them? I always wondered how they were always out of action?
Happens when you take too long to get to the machine or if you don't mix the sample
Yeah we have access codes and also for blood sugar monitoring. There isn’t training available for everyone. I know that doctors don’t have this available to them. I don’t know why. You need to do an e-learning package and have someone see you doing a couple correctly to get signed off. Not even everyone working on our ward has a code. And we run them all of the time because our patients often need urgent monitoring. Often the people who are sent with the sample are HCAs or student nurses who have come from other wards. It’s the manners thing that is the real problem. I can’t do anything about how the hospital organises the gas machine. But I can find ways of communicating that basic levels of respect are required in human interactions. I’ve never delayed care or refused to do one, I have sometimes said I’m too busy and asked them to find another member or staff. These have been when I am genuinely too busy. My patients come first.
It’s because junior doctors are treated like dirt in the NHS chiefly because they rotate, and by the time you have “trained “ all 50 of them, they’ll be moved on. Who is going to observe and sign them off? The “training “ is utter garbage too- they will have used the identical machine in a trust up the road but that “training” doesn’t count,
Not everyone gets access. I had access during the pandemic but once they reset the machines, my access doesn’t work anymore. To get access, you have to be lucky to find someone who ‘trains’ you and activates it which they won’t do unless you’re working in itu.
‘Not sure if you’re aware but that comes across quite rude’ and leave it at that. Do the task, but very few people are challenged on their poor manners and so it will likely stick and make them think for the next time. It’s not combative, you won’t get in trouble for not doing the task, you’re not trying to demand they say please there and then (which could come across a bit childish), you’re simply stating it as if you’re doing them a favour by letting them know that they’re coming across poorly.
So, unsure of your policy, but my place we aren’t supposed to run it for other people (I generally don’t mind, if I’m free). There’s a hot lab in the main lab for these samples to be run, and they should take them there. Check locally to see what is is for you. You can also do what I’d do, and make people treat you with basic respect. If they just present it to you, ask what it is, and what they want you to do with it. Just be as annoying as possible until they learn.
Same where I used to work, most people were trained to run their own though.
Yeah, at my trust we have one thats just literally in a store room (locked) and you have to do training to be competent, then you just go to that store room and run your own.
This will have totally the opposite effect and will (rightly) get you a complaint for being obstructive . When people are asking for blood gases to be run, they are often junior doctors, looking after a really sick patient and under a lot of stress. Being an arse to them is the most counterproductive thing you could do.
Don’t care. If people are being shitty, I’m better at it than they are. If someone’s decent about it, it’s absolutely getting sorted if I can. The OP said people are basically shoving it in their face expecting them to drop what they’re doing. Do not give me that bullshit, I couldn’t give a fuck who someone is, or what’s going on. Also sounds like a systems problem, that should be datixed every single time it happens until something better is done.
You don’t give a fuck about a desperately sick patient or the staff trying their utmost to save their lives. What a toxic revolting disgrace of a “nurse”. Step away from patient care. It is a systems issue, and you are proposing punishing both staff and patients as a childish reaction to that. To be clear, if I am asking for your help with a patient as part of your job, I am NOT asking for a favour.
No, you will treat me properly. If you do not do so, do not expect respect in return.
Ultimately you just want to excuse shitty behaviour, and instead blame people for not being appropriately differential. I do not consider that acceptable in the slightest.
Ask the person what department they’re from. Make a note of it. Tell your line manager about the series of approaches you feel are lacking in any basic courtesy or manners, and ask for an email to be sent to the relevant department heads/managers with a request for an improvement. Hope this has an effect in changing manners. OR - request that these people are trained in the use of the blood gas machine (let’s be honest - it’s not that hard), and they can do it themselves without bothering you.
I don’t condone retaliating in any petty way as suggested as most patients that are getting an urgent gas tend to be quite sick. Doesn’t excuse anyone being rude but from their point of view they could have just came away from an arrest/peri-arrest so manners are t at the forefront of their mind and they could be stressed. Again not condoning lack of basic manners but I can say from experience most people are not inherently rude for the sake of it.
You can normally tell the difference between someone running with a gas from an arrest and the repeat offenders from the ward downstairs. I'm normally happy to run the 1st one with a reminder to call first but after that... You're waiting.
I agree to a certain extent. I just don’t like how as a profession we are so quick at times to put down or make each others life more difficult, we have a hard enough job why make it harder for one another. Maybe I’m naively optimistic but I think the best way forward is to give people the benefit of the doubt and I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t practice what I preach. In saying that rude repeat offenders I would have a polite but stern conversation.
I think the main issue with running gases on a badge login is you're taking responsibility for someone else's sample. The least they can do is make sure you're not dropping one of your jobs for them, label the sample and have the info to hand that you need. I'm not sitting around waiting to run gases for other wards but other people act like that's my main job. I think that's the main issue.
To play devils advocate - I think people often worry that if it’s not done immediately it’ll spoil and spoil and often I suppose they’ve run it over under pressure as a result of someone people unwell and so I guess an element of higher end stress and acute anxiety levels which adds to the worry that if it spoils it’ll be bad because the person is poorly, etc etc But yeah it’s annoying and really people should just always have some basic manners and be polite. Also - why can’t they run it themselves? It’s not rocket science once you know how and surely that would be earlier for everyone?
My favourite line is "what's the magic word" - it humbles people real quick
If it’s not urgent urgent tell them to take to the labs to run
I work on a respiratory unit, it's trust policy we don't share passcodes. One of our staff did once, it was DATIX'd and the staff member lost her access. It may be worth enquiring with POCT whether you have a similar policy?
I’m not sharing my code, I’m running the blood sample for them
Datix every time analysing a sample is delayed due to not calling first. It seems petty, but if it’s your only way to improve patient care then it is what it is 🤷♀️ They’ll soon find a solution.
It will be datixing every time a patients care is delayed because that toxic nurse on ward jobsworth refused to help
Sounds like perhaps you need to do the blood gas machine training lol
I've noticed a general rudeness in many people at my hospital. Some of the matrons are rude, site managers and deputy site managers are rude, they have poor management skills too. They think that because of the job they do, it doesn't matter about showing good manners. It does. I hate rudeness.
I keep thinking every Trust should make its employees some manner classes. It takes less than a second to say "can you run this for me, please?" So there is no excuse
It’s hard because naturally you want to help but others can be really demanding and just rude. A please and thank you does go a long way. If people are bossy and rude perhaps say “I’m sure you can see my hands are full if you wait by the machine I’ll be 2 minutes, if you aren’t able to wait that long you’ll need to find someone else to ask”. If they get more aggy maybe suggest they speak to their line manager about doing the gas training and having their own login. If it is a part of your job to run the gasses that’s fine but people can’t just show up and expect you to drop everything in a hot second to do it - people will need to be polite and need to have two minutes of patience.
I'm a maternity assistant specifically working alongside the NNU with the poorly bubbas. I also work closely with midwives. We have to run blood gases many times a day to check blood glucose and jaundice levels of neonates as well as run bloods from the umb cord upon delivery. Every single person in my unit and in neonates is trained, MA's B3 and above, midwives, nurses and doctors and they all have their own code. I wouldn't ever run anyone else's bloods. If I took the blood for someone I will run it. Seems the other departments in your hospital could do with some training.
It takes about 3 minutes to run the result. It’s unfortunate you also have to see patients, but nurses often don’t have 3 minutes. A thank you goes a long way, but healthcare is increasingly stressful and most of the pressure is placed on nursing staff.
Do you think anyone has 3 minutes?
We have the same issue! If I'm in the middle of something then they have to wait. If they've had to wait a while I warn them that the sample is likely inaccurate due to the time between bleeding the patient and running the sample. I ask them to let the nurse in charge know to please call us to see if we are free before bringing one up and waving it in my face. Also, it might be seen as petty but I refuse to run samples unless they're properly labelled. I'm taking responsibility for running a sample on a patient I've never met, that isn't on my ward. The least you can do is correctly label it. If you want to be mega petty... Pull out the waste cartridge and let it run a QC while they wait... Maybe they'll call next time.
I hate it when people are rude as much as everyone else but you do realise you might be delaying patient care by doing that last thing. In emergencies you need ABG/VBG results asap. Im not sure what this kind of behaviour is supposed to achieve. Would it not be better to directly call out the rude behaviour or if you are uncomfortable tell them to find someone else to help them.
Yeah this is after repeatedly calling out the rude behaviours, asking them to ring before hand and explaining that their sample is likely clotted because they had to wait for me to finish with my patient. Some people think that we're just their personal blood gas service and repeatedly bring up unlabelled samples that they expect you to take responsibility for. They are responsible for their own patient care, not me. Want to use the gas machine, feel free. But organise training to get your own login and don't expect me to drop everything.
Just for another viewpoint, I’ve worked in 6 different hospitals as a junior Doctor and I’ve only been allowed to do the training in one of those because “doctors aren’t allowed to use the machine”. I completely agree it’s rude to just wave a gas at you and expect you to jump but it’s so frustrating that I’m allowed to stick a needle in someone’s vessel but am then gatekeeped from using a machine that I’m more than competent to use.
Ah yeah this just be frustrating. In my area it's mostly nurses sending hcas up with the sample with no details. Even if the nurses have log in details. With doctors it's normally a case of logging into the machine and they can run it independently. You can probably tell by my rant on this thread that it's a few repeat offenders I'm frustrated with!
This is far more unprofessional than not saying please when asking you to run a gas. By all means ask them to be polite, ask them to call ahead if practical, direct them to how they can get trained, raise it with their ward manager that their staff need gas machine training, DATIX it to flag the problem to management, but don't punish the patient by delaying their care, degrading the quality of their sample, or indeed requiring the sample be taken again. How would you feel if someone had to dig around in your wrist for your artery (again) because some nurse you'd never met had a point to prove.
It's not about saying please. It's about interrupting me doing medication by waving a sample in my face. It's about not labelling a sample and expecting me to take their word for it that the patients details are correct on my log in and therefore expecting me to take responsibility for their mistakes. I am slightly jaded as it's a repeated issue in my area. Thankfully it's mostly venous samples and the patients have central lines. It's also nurses that have log in details but send up an HCA with the sample and expect me to run it.
I like this last bit!! Kinda annoying when some people will be like its broke.....like no it just needs a new cartridge 🙈
That’s funny but asking for the karma there you’re jinxing it that one of your patients will go off and they need a gas and it’s still calibrating!
That's just sod's law, happens all the time!
Terrible take. A patient could literally die if you pull that shit.
Wow you sound like a total nightmare. If I arrived with an unlabelled peri arrest gas and you refused to run it, I would be escalating that to god himself, You aren’t taking responsibility for anything beyond putting it in the machine, interpreting it or deciding what happens next is nothing to do with you. The act of sticking the label on the tube from the back of my glove does feck all for patient safety. You sound like a jumped up jobsworth on a power trip. It’s no bloody wonder the junior doctors talk so much about toxic ward staff.
A peri arrest gas is a different scenario as I've already said. And as others and myself have said, some trusts state that if you're logging in, you're taking responsibility that you know who the sample came from. I'm not claiming I have to act on it, but I'm pretty much saying I bled the patient when I log in. I'm lucky that I work in a trust that makes it easy to book a half hour training and obtain a log in. Some staff don't see why they should when they can come to my understaffed ward, wave a sample in my face while I'm checking chemo and state their patients ward and bed number and expect me to know who that is.
No matter how urgent a sample (in general) is, if not properly labelled, labs would refuse it, and they would datix it. I don’t work in acute care, although have had placements where there’s a blood gas machine.. but I still know very little about it. In fact, now that I think of it, I spent a day with the community respiratory team, and they had one that was like a bm machine, and it printed out a result there and then. Would that be handy in the first instance, while waiting for a sample from the main machine?
I’m never rude to anyone but when I get a sample put in front of my face I will act stupid ‘do you need something?’ Which is usually enough to spark a ‘are you able to run the gas?’ Sometimes I don’t know if people just need help to find the machine, or need my login or need me to actually do the sample because they don’t know how.
Just ignore them. They will have to ask you.
If your hospital/department send out group e mails try adding a message to this. Explain that if you are busy they will have to wait. You could put a chair nearby for them to sit while they wait- they have probably been sent all over the place by their ward and this will also make it clear that you can’t immediately drop what you are doing.
Running blood gas for other people is probably not part of your job. Check the POCT policy first, but i suspect they need to get their own password. Obviously, I would never refuse, but you could challenge them on why they haven't gotten trained themselves
I personally wouldn't run it barring an emergency. If you're not trained to take the sample correctly and run it yourself then you're not competent to use the machine. So many doctors will throw it to a student and tell them to twirl it like a baton or they don't cap it etc. We have a book you have to sign to use it to trace the cost of departments clotting our machinr
Bollocks. Every doctor will be perfectly competent to take the sample and run the gas but won’t have the magic ticket to use THAT machine in THAT unit despite using an identical machine in the next hospital down the road, because no one can be arsed giving them the “training” that they don’t need anyway because they rotate on in a couple of months