Fortunately, a later experience tonight made me feel a bit better...
Had an outpatient infant with a critical value. The Doc was from out of
town and had not bothered to include a phone number with the orders, and
was not in our computer system. Between trying to keep up with the rest
of the work and trying to track him down, I finally got ahold of him 2
1/2 hours later thru his answering service and that took 3 calls. ;-)

I had to call the patient's family to get the office phone number and
they were not home initially. I just HATE doing that because it nearly
always spooks them. I just told them, truthfully, that I needed the
doctors information so we could make sure his office got the results.

I commented wryly to the doctor when he finally called me back that he
was a difficult man to get ahold of, then gave him the results. He asked
for the others, (there were several tests), then THANKED me for taking
the time and trouble to let him know.

Little things like that can sometimes make it all worthwhile eh?
It's nice to be appreciated for the efforts from time to time.

A simple "thank you" can mean so much!

We are not here to provide test results.
We are here to take the blame !

MB

Heh.

My favorite pet peeve happened again today...

Ortho's that don't anticipate blood loss in elderly patients.
In this case, a bilateral knee replacement. :-P

Ordered a pre-op type and screen only.

Dude came out of surgery with a 6.5 gram hemoglobin.

Stat crossmatch anyone? <lol>

Drives me BONKERS!

Helluva way to start my shift..... and he had to be re-drawn since he'd
not been banded initially so the doc got all t'd off about that, but I'd
anticipated what was going to happen so started setting up my tubes and
stuff while the phlebotomist went to do the re-draw. It caused maybe a 5
minute delay, tops. ;-)

Failure to plan on their part is always the lab's fault, right???

I just have to add a rant over something that happened today. A patient came
in to our ER with a complaint of malaise, weakness, "green sputum", no
fever. He apparently is a recovering alky, no drug use, many many trips to
the ER for vague symptoms. Previous labs were pretty much normal, hiv neg,
lyme neg, rpr non reactive. No hx of travel.

The doc sent up a full battery of stuff (as he usually does) including
cardiac, troponin I, EtOH, dau screen and a request for Q fever and Brucella
antibodies. He claims that he consulted with Infectious Disease. He did have
a WBC of 11.3 with 70% grans. It appears that something is going on!

He never did order a blood culture or a sputum culture! I told the
pathologist that this guy is out of control and he's now not looking for
zebras, but now he's going after Eohippus!  I suggested that we hold this
specimen until we hear directly from an ID doc, but it got sent out to
Quest.

The patient was given a PPD and sent home! I really hope our path goes after
this guy. He's already tracking his ordering of troponins, BNPs and blood
cultures without medical indication of doing so.  I just needed to rant!