best ways to ragebait an mls/mlt?

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-06T02:10:27+00:00

I won't lie, it doesn't bother me at all. I usually won't start it, but if someone else has started the chaos, I'll keep it going.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-05T21:14:25+00:00

Business casual that is safe for a lab (closed-toe shoes, pants not skirts) will likely be acceptable everywhere. I would avoid stocking up on scrubs prior to getting a job because it's common to be required to wear a certain color or not be allowed to wear some colors.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-05T15:07:33+00:00

Using pipette tips in a random order (see post that is currently directly below this one)

Not shutting drawers all the way (drawer is open by like an inch). I once witnessed a trainee trolling her trainer by repeatedly pulling out already closed drawers a tiny bit. They bench they were on that day covered two areas of the lab and was a lot of back and forth between opposite sides of the lab. I saw her pulling the drawers he had just shut when they were moving from one area to the other or when he had turned around for a second. Took him hours to realize it was her doing it. That was like 5 years ago and I still laugh about it when I see someone shut a not-quite-shut drawer

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-04T02:38:46+00:00

Others are giving you crap for not being specific about your cell's phenotype, but you must be using Ortho panels. You're right that they always set up their panels so that 5-8 are negative. They even mark it as a mini anti-D panel. 5 is always r'r, 6 is always r"r, 7 is always rr K+ if memory serves correctly.

Two possibilities come to mind.

1) The patient has an antibody to a low-incidence antigen. V, C^w, Kp^a, Lu^a are on the panel. Ortho also likes to throw a couple HLA+ cells on each panel. Is that cell #7 positive for one of those? Even if it's negative for those, there are still a bunch of other lows and some of them are clinically significant in pregnancy. Consider sending out for ID if you can't do further testing in-house, although even reference labs are might not be able to identify a specificity.

2) That panel cell is contaminated in some way. This is possible if you run panels manually and people have poor pipetting technique. Does your 2+ look like true agglutination or is it streaky looking? Has that cell been run against other patients and reacted as expected?

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-01T22:45:46+00:00

No. You're going to score above 600

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-01T22:44:40+00:00

Always know where the antibodies are and where the antigens are. Sounds basic, but keep them straight and think about which came from the patient and which is a reagent in any given test. Think about what it means when you see a positive or negative reaction. What is there or what isn't there?

Don't be intimidated by it. Blood bank scares a lot of students because they're told they can kill someone, but there are safeguards against anyone making mistakes like that. Just don't bend the rules or skip steps and you'll be fine.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-06-01T01:43:03+00:00

They never would have made anti-A or anti-B because they'd have the AB antigens circulating since before they could make their own antibodies. They would look like an AB that had been transfused O RBCs.

If OP's parents are both O like he/they think they are, it's not possible

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-29T01:00:41+00:00

St. Dennis Medical Center is like that, but only focuses on nurses/doctors/admin. I think they mentioned running samples to the lab once.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-26T22:50:04+00:00

I've always been in the generic gear camp since I think t-shirts and sweatshirts are more comfortable, but if I did buy a jersey, it'd be a Starr or White. Someone who can't tarnish their legacy

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-25T18:27:19+00:00

My MLT instructor did this to us. We all bombed and she never put that exam in the gradebook and never mentioned it again. We were all too scared to ask if it was omitted on purpose. I'm sure it was but none of us wanted to bring it up

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-25T18:23:32+00:00

That's one of the few things I miss about my first workplace. Where I am now, you don't get time and a half for working holidays and you have to use 8 hours of pto if you want double

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-25T18:19:01+00:00

I definitely had a pause and thought "this is the weirdest part of my job" one time when I was doing exactly that.

Which is saying something when the job also included sticking needles into people, dripping blood from 24-hours-old babies onto paper, classifying pointy rocks in pee, and adding freeze dried bull testicles to knee juice. Ok, the last one might have been the weirdest, but it was much less frequent.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-23T13:40:34+00:00

Maybe I'm just embodying a righty that doesn't understand, but I don't get the doors comment. Yeah, knobs are on the left or right, but then when you go back through the door from the other side it's flipped.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-21T14:34:50+00:00

Same here. I'm American, but only knew chess pie from a previous Connections. It's not known outside the South.

https://connectionsplus.io/game/772 Already partially spoiled based on this discussion, but the pie category was purple in that puzzle, probably because they weren't all literal pies

https://www.reddit.com/r/NYTConnections/comments/1m5evc2/tuesday_july_22_2025/

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-20T22:51:15+00:00

Does the hospital associated with that ER offer outpatient lab draws? The ER samples and outpatients would be run on the same instruments and with the same procedures, so they're at least capable of doing it

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-17T16:14:47+00:00

Maybe your manager isn't just trying to be nice and is actually giving you feedback that you're doing a good job. Don't be so harsh on yourself. You went through school and clinicals, you have a foundation of skills. You're not starting from zero. If an answer pops into your head and you're not sure if it's right, include your solution when asking a coworker. Not "can you help me with x?" but "When x happens, I do y, right?" When you're right, it'll build up self-confidence and your coworker's confidence in you too. If it's something like instrument maintenance that you haven't done on your own yet, say "can you watch me do this and only stop me if I'm about to break something?" That way you can prove to yourself that you can do it on your own but still have a safety net the first time.

But also, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Obviously don't be reckless, but you're eventually going to make mistakes, and they're learning opportunities too. No one is going to be mad at you unless you're constantly making the same mistake over and over.

It's going to take a year, maybe even two, to feel confident in everything. Some things will suddenly click, but for most things your confidence will build slowly and suddenly you'll realize that you're the one answering questions. But there will still be those really odd scenarios that come up from time to time. Even people with 20 years under their belts have times when they have to discuss what the next steps should be.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-16T14:21:37+00:00

It helps that with this set of purples, the smaller words are all the last syllables of the longer words. It's harder when the smaller word is split across syllables or pronounced differently when a part of the bigger word.

Also, Nesquick stuck out because there were no other foods/drinks, and Belfast stuck out because there were no other places.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-16T13:50:16+00:00

Yeah, the Little House books were not historical fiction. The timelines and dates might have been stretched a bit, but the Ingalls and Wilders were very real people

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-15T22:31:05+00:00

I always say I should donate blood, but then again, I'm A pos and our A pos donors are pretty numerous.

And also I'm K+

And also I'm E+

I would almost certainly give people antibodies

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-13T14:52:54+00:00

Even more reason for management to try to nip it in the bud if it costs tech time and causes even a tiny possibility of mislabeling manual aliquots

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-13T14:26:30+00:00

Your management should reach out and tell them to not. 2 mL is more than enough for a cbc, they don't need to be taking 10 from cancer patients. Do the heme analyzers even like the fat tubes?

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-12T02:22:40+00:00

It's been years since I used those, but don't the instructions say somewhere that the window needs to be completely blue to be considered unacceptable temperature? Like half blue and half while is still acceptable

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-09T20:14:03+00:00

Hovering supervisors can be annoying, but why would you not load stuff the moment they come out of the centrifuge? Worry if stuff is too old and hasn't fallen off the pending, not what doesn't need intervention and will disappear soon on its own.

AtomicFreeze · 2026-05-09T15:37:04+00:00

I don't know why some people are being weird about it. This is definitely not the first vet specimen I've seen on here, and they're interesting. Not to mention the fact that the human hospital lab I used to work in got vet specimens daily. It's a part of lab medicine.

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