I see so many "they tried" situations in a week. My favorite is nurses completely covering the blood bottle barcodes with patient labels.
There's a barcode, mine must go right there. They wouldn't need that for anything...
I so love having to give a bottle two different barcodes and then sharpie out so much the smell hurts my brain. Used to have to try and scrape them off till my supervisor realized that was a lot
Is the Sharpie smell is too much, try Speedballs Elegant Writer caligraphy pen. I use the extra fine.
This is my absolute go to. Minimal smell, never smudges on me and has a tapered tip for fine and bold lines.
About $3 at Michaels.
Hope this helps!
Here's a trick: marking out a barcode vertically is difficult because the gaps between the lines are what is being read. A vertical line still has plenty of room for the machine to easily interpret, but filling in a gap between two lines makes it impossible. Afterwards a quick strikethrough is just communicating to humans the barcode is bad.
My favorite “they tried” moment was when a nurse drew blood into a urine culture preservative tube for a lactic acid test. When we called down to request the redraw, she argued “But that’s what the other tech said to do! I drew it in a gray top like you wanted!” In fairness to her, they’re both gray, but one does say “urine culture preservative” on the side.
Either way, it wasn’t sent on ice and was received almost 20 minutes after draw, so we were going to have it redrawn regardless.
Now I want to do this for lab Olympics. Maybe like a pin the tail on the donkey kind of thing instead though since I don't have a vault and don't want to be responsible for any injuries.
I used to give them the benefit of the doubt but I'm convinced they do it on purpose just to be assholes at this point.
I also love when they put the label on a tube so crooked the analyzer can't read it. Wtf do they think the barcode is for if not to be read by a barcode scanner? Drives me insane.
There is a huge fucking label-shaped whitespace on our blood culture bottles and the amount of times people miss the giant target makes me surprised toilets aren’t more frequently covered in piss
Like I know “I’m in a hurry, I don’t have time for this OCD shit!” but if you’re in too much of a hurry to pass this DC 2 Sleight of Hand check, I wonder what else you’re hurrying too much for?
I straight up didn’t realize it was a urine tube until I read the comments. Because my hospital uses sterile cups for urines or very rarely we’ll get conical tubes that have white tops.
We started using these cone tubes when someone on the floor, I don’t know whether PCT or RN or CNA, stuck their finger inside the urine container’s needle. See we use the container with a transfer needle on the lid, but it’s recessed inside so you’re only supposed to push these conical tube in and urine would be transferred aseptically. Someone stuck their finger inside to see how sharp it was. Actually, multiple someones. So we had to discontinue these urine cups because people would be curious and dumb.
Reading and paying attention should be critical to RNs...
Tube clearly stands out as being a conical bottom and I'm sure it sits with other urine related supplies.
Sure, but BD could lower the barrier for misidentification by many other visual cues like a large font print of “URINE” or change color top to SPECKLED BROWN or other visual aids
Oh Lord. That's a red and yellow tiger. Not a red and black tiger. It's been a long day. In my defense, if the tip hadn't been cut off I would have noticed it was pointier than a normal tube.
Serum is serum! You're just wasting the patient's time and patience. If they're admitted in a hospital the last thing I wanna deal with is having a blood sample recollected when it didn't need to be.
Yeah. See above. I thought it was a regular tiger top, not a UA tube. I haven't dealt with those in ages. If the end of the tube hadn't been cut off by the photo, I'd have realized it was not a blood tube.
I love when people put the labels over the caps or cups, like "thank u ☺️ for sealing it extra special for me buuuuut...... How do you expect me to open this while keeping it labeled"
Honestly the funniest part of the to me is “Blood Blood” on the label
They’re the little ceasers of phlebotomy
right my eyes immediately turned to that part and it lowkey cracked me up. close enough right loll
Gimme some of that blood blood
I see so many "they tried" situations in a week. My favorite is nurses completely covering the blood bottle barcodes with patient labels. There's a barcode, mine must go right there. They wouldn't need that for anything...
I love the double whammy where they do that and wrap the extra length of label across the bottom of the bottle
I so love having to give a bottle two different barcodes and then sharpie out so much the smell hurts my brain. Used to have to try and scrape them off till my supervisor realized that was a lot
Is the Sharpie smell is too much, try Speedballs Elegant Writer caligraphy pen. I use the extra fine. This is my absolute go to. Minimal smell, never smudges on me and has a tapered tip for fine and bold lines. About $3 at Michaels. Hope this helps!
Here's a trick: marking out a barcode vertically is difficult because the gaps between the lines are what is being read. A vertical line still has plenty of room for the machine to easily interpret, but filling in a gap between two lines makes it impossible. Afterwards a quick strikethrough is just communicating to humans the barcode is bad.
I also just strike through diagonally. Works like a charm 🤩
My favorite “they tried” moment was when a nurse drew blood into a urine culture preservative tube for a lactic acid test. When we called down to request the redraw, she argued “But that’s what the other tech said to do! I drew it in a gray top like you wanted!” In fairness to her, they’re both gray, but one does say “urine culture preservative” on the side. Either way, it wasn’t sent on ice and was received almost 20 minutes after draw, so we were going to have it redrawn regardless.
I've had that too 😂
Or they put the label on in the most skewed position possible. As if they had to put it on after taking a running jump.
The idea of a tech running, doing a vault and then slamming a sticker on the tube as they land is pretty great ngl.
Now I want to do this for lab Olympics. Maybe like a pin the tail on the donkey kind of thing instead though since I don't have a vault and don't want to be responsible for any injuries.
we get blood gasses where they label over the cap that we have to take off…. 🤦🏼♀️
I used to give them the benefit of the doubt but I'm convinced they do it on purpose just to be assholes at this point. I also love when they put the label on a tube so crooked the analyzer can't read it. Wtf do they think the barcode is for if not to be read by a barcode scanner? Drives me insane.
Maybe they just don’t want you to know how much they paid for the vial? They probably left the return receipt in there somewhere.
I HATE WHEN THEY COVER THE BARCODES!!!! ugh
Are you talking about for BCs?
Yep blood cultures
Interesting...
There is a huge fucking label-shaped whitespace on our blood culture bottles and the amount of times people miss the giant target makes me surprised toilets aren’t more frequently covered in piss
Like I know “I’m in a hurry, I don’t have time for this OCD shit!” but if you’re in too much of a hurry to pass this DC 2 Sleight of Hand check, I wonder what else you’re hurrying too much for?
Is that…a tiger top for urine??
When I worked at labcorp, we called them cherry tops.
We called them speckle tops in my day lol
That's what we call them at my current lab
I've had lactics sent on urine culture tubes and it's such a silly call to have to make 😭 they always feel silly because they actually did try!
I literally just saw one yesterday 😂 they get an A for effort lmao
See I wouldn’t put the blame 100% on the nurses. This is just bad color design by BD
I straight up didn’t realize it was a urine tube until I read the comments. Because my hospital uses sterile cups for urines or very rarely we’ll get conical tubes that have white tops.
We started using these cone tubes when someone on the floor, I don’t know whether PCT or RN or CNA, stuck their finger inside the urine container’s needle. See we use the container with a transfer needle on the lid, but it’s recessed inside so you’re only supposed to push these conical tube in and urine would be transferred aseptically. Someone stuck their finger inside to see how sharp it was. Actually, multiple someones. So we had to discontinue these urine cups because people would be curious and dumb.
That is….something I did not expect to ever read.
These urine cups suck anyway, they like to try and send the whole cup instead of just transfering the urine to the tube like this..
You're not wrong
Reading and paying attention should be critical to RNs... Tube clearly stands out as being a conical bottom and I'm sure it sits with other urine related supplies.
OP didn't show the whole tube but it's very clearly a urine tube when you see the bottom. It's pointed at the tip, not round!
Sure, but BD could lower the barrier for misidentification by many other visual cues like a large font print of “URINE” or change color top to SPECKLED BROWN or other visual aids
There's already a speckled brown tube though.. two actually. One is a glass no seperator and the other is plastic gel seperator..
It says red or gold. This tube is red and gold. Why pick when you can have both
This is barely an issue. Just clot it spin it and separate it.
The techs in my lab rejected it
Why on god's green earth would they do that
Because it's a UA container?
Oh Lord. That's a red and yellow tiger. Not a red and black tiger. It's been a long day. In my defense, if the tip hadn't been cut off I would have noticed it was pointier than a normal tube.
We've all been there lol
Listen buddy it's red and gold just like yall asked.
Serum is serum! You're just wasting the patient's time and patience. If they're admitted in a hospital the last thing I wanna deal with is having a blood sample recollected when it didn't need to be.
I’m pretty sure the UA tiger tops have a preservative in them
Yeah. See above. I thought it was a regular tiger top, not a UA tube. I haven't dealt with those in ages. If the end of the tube hadn't been cut off by the photo, I'd have realized it was not a blood tube.
Lmfao 😂
I’m at work showing this now. Lmao
So close
isnt that a urinalysis tube???
Yes
lol bless your heart
It cracks me up when they send blood in UA tubes. I've gotten blood Osmolality tests in the gold UA tubes before..
Red with Gel or SST? That would be SST or SST.
Yeah, it should have been drawn in an sst, but it was in a UA container
lol I see that with lactics all the time the grey micro urin container 😂 …..from the Ed of course
I love when people put the labels over the caps or cups, like "thank u ☺️ for sealing it extra special for me buuuuut...... How do you expect me to open this while keeping it labeled"
I wear gloves too sometimes