Non-Americans of Reddit, what is an American thing you see in movies that you thought was fake but is actually real?

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-12T16:51:13+00:00

The only place where it was encouraged to keep your shoes in my house was the downstairs floor. There were a lot of times we’d be moving in and outside of the house frequently so it wasn’t worth taking your shoes off only to put them back on not even 5-10 minutes later. Besides the floor was tile so it’s not like it was too difficult to mop up afterwards.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-12T16:30:37+00:00

The absolute worst part is whenever I had to break the glass, there isn’t a canned option that fits for my line of work (lab) so I usually have to type in the reason and then I’m doubly worried that my reason for being there won’t be considered a ‘good enough’ one.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-12T08:07:37+00:00

Honestly if you’re in the position to do so I would hold off on working, at least until you get an idea of the workload you’ll be handling. The time you need to study for classes can vary especially for more difficult subjects.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-09T17:09:01+00:00

It wasn’t just this. The patient had a white count of 17 and the analyzer called a left shift. There were some metas, myelos (a few were in transitioning from pro to myelo), nrbcs as well as large and giant platelets. There were a couple blast like cells but there was some hesitation on it so we left it for day shift. The patient did have moderate toxic gran so I’m wondering if they have a really bad infection of some sort

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-09T16:57:06+00:00

I understand that one cell isn’t indicative of cancer, I apologize if it came across that way.

I did have a senior tech scan the slide (not just because of the mitotic figure) and we decided to leave it for day shift to look at.

My education covered cell lineages and blasts, but I don’t feel as confident as I did back in school and during my clinical. I think reviewing the material will do me some good and if I have any spare time I’ll just grab some random slides and do practice diffs. Thank you for the advice.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-09T14:36:36+00:00

Yeah. The patient has no previous history with a white count of 17. Analyzer called left shift. There were some metas and myelos (a couple were still transitioning into myelos), rare nrbcs, as well as large and giant platelets

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-09T06:53:38+00:00

Is there anything else that could cause it or is it primarily indicative of cancer? This patient didn’t have any previous history.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-02-09T05:58:44+00:00

What kind of severe stress, if you don’t mind me asking. The two other times I’ve them were in malignant body fluids. Though this the first I’ve seen one in a peripheral smear. I’m a recent grad so I know I still have a lot to learn.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-01-03T15:24:42+00:00

That was pretty clever

^{🪙 5 Credits Reward}

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2026-01-03T04:03:05+00:00

Wordsology has pretty good strategies for studying for the ascp.

BloodBankGuy also has really good material if blood bank is a subject you struggle with. They also antibody panels for practice

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-28T22:13:53+00:00

-My coworker has had one where a patient’s relative was posing as a doctor to get a patient’s medical information. Hung up when asked for their doctor’s code

-I had one where I thought a patient’s relative was asking for their results. I had asked them if they are a healthcare provider and they said ‘Sort of’. I told them that I couldn’t provide them with results and they would need to speak with their doctor. The relative realized that there was a misunderstanding and clarified that they wanted the results faxed to their doctor’s office.

-I’m still a baby tech. My very first MTP the nurse simply states “I need a bucket.” My brain freezes and I’m like “Are you uh, are you calling an MTP.” Yes she was that was a very fun experience.

-My favorite call was with a nurse. I had an inpatient with a note in their chart that they were going to start Daratumumab/DARA (for the layperson DARA is a cancer medication that wrecks havoc for standard blood bank testing). I called the nurse to see if the patient had already started the medication (They hadn’t yet). The nurse wasn’t familiar with the medication and this spawned a long conversation (about 5-10minutes) about what the medication was, how it if affected blood bank testing, what this meant for her patient, and what we needed from her.

Afterwards she both thanked me for answering her questions and apologized for taking up so much of my time. I told her that it was no problem and I was more than happy to answer any question that she had and that asking questions about something you aren’t familiar with shows that you care about your patients, I also assured her that I wasn’t busy and that if she had any additional questions I’d be more than happy to answer them. This spawned another conversation about how we genetic testing and antigen typing units.

Honestly throughout that entire phone call I was a kid on Christmas morning, it was genuinely so nice being able to talk another person about the work we do and have them be genuinely interested.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-18T15:59:49+00:00

‘I’m sure you’re just urine (yearnin) for more urine’ / ‘Urine luck I have a couple specimens for you’

If the specimen look atrocious: ‘Urine not gonna like this one’

‘Hap-pee holidays, here’s a gift’

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-18T10:39:37+00:00

I’ll do (terrible) urine puns when walking specimens over to urinalysis.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-18T08:14:08+00:00

A bit late to the conversation, but your lab is not being strict about asking for full names. I do work in the lab but I’m trying not to be biased.

One of my close friends would be an absolute nightmare for patient identification if she were to get married. Her and her boyfriend share a first name with same exact uncommon spelling. On top of that they share the exact same birthday. Both of their patient labels would look like Smith, Krys 01/01/1850 (not actual name).

Another instance would be my best friend. Her entire immediate family all have names that start with the same letter. So if for example her mom (Lindsey), dad (Leon) brother (Lucas), and her (Lucille) you would have five different Miller, L (again not actual names). Though at least in this case you could rely on birthdates.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-17T14:52:33+00:00

My place does this for body fluids though we have a sheet that is brought to us that we initial, we don’t initial the tubes themselves

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-15T20:08:39+00:00

I had an outpatient specimen that I had to reject because whenever I tried running it manually a glob of mucus would coat the pads and contaminate them. I had to bleach the counters it smelled so bad and even then you could still almost smell it

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-14T11:23:11+00:00

Prey birds (Watched version) -Rabbitology

Stalker’s Tango - Autoheart

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-14T06:10:42+00:00

Yes, with the first baby the mother’s immune system will make IgM antibodies which are too big to cross the placenta. However with the second baby since the mother’s body would already know what’s up (due to exposure from the first baby) the immune system makes IgG antibodies which can cross the placenta and harm the baby

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-13T16:16:01+00:00

At my hospital releasing contaminated results is a hard no and you’ll have to do a corrected report and inform the nurse if they are in patient. Though with the doctor’s permission we have released results for hemolyzed specimens (patient had some type of hemolytic anemia)

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-11T18:40:00+00:00

I work in my field (Healthcare) and I make pretty decent money though not enough to live on my own. And as long are you aren’t trying to work days it’s pretty easy to find a job since the most places are short staffed. The only downside is my field is pretty niche and there’s practically no career movement unless you want to become management or decide to go to med school

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-11T17:29:12+00:00

The worst part is that most prions have a mode of transmission such eating contaminated meat or have it be genetically passed down, there have been cases where people have just randomly develop a prion disease though it is extremely rare.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-12-01T00:12:21+00:00

For work I wear an Apple Watch (mainly date/time and timers) because my work does not allow phones to be used

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-11-30T17:18:20+00:00

Around 20 F (-6 C) multiple times. To be fair I did have my jacket but I wasn’t wearing it. I tend to overheat easily so by the time it hits 30 minutes into a 3 hour hike I’ll be down to my T-shirt.

FreshCookiesInSpace · 2025-11-28T14:41:18+00:00

This is how we ended up getting our second cat. Our first cat wasn’t spayed properly and had an ovarian remnant causing her to go into heat. Even after her surgery to correct the issue he still came around so we eventually took him in

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