Sunday, April 5, 2015

Ridiculous

So, I had a seizure patient come in the other day who told us he was taking his keppra but missed a dose, or maybe he didn't, or he might have taken depakote instead because he had an old prescription, but really he can't remember at all. No big deal. I sent off a rainbow of blood to the lab and the doc ordered a keppra level.

Two hours later it still hadn't resulted, so I called the lab. "Oh, that's a send out," they said. "It's Friday night, so that probably won't get resulted until Sunday or so, but since it's a holiday it'll probably take longer."

Am I just spoiled from working at a fantastic Home Hospital? Even though we were somewhat rural, we had everything - neurosurgery, cath labs, primary stroke certification, and especially fucking keppra levels. I now work in a "state of the art" facility which apparently can't find their ass from a hole in the ground and get basic labs done in a timely manner. Or am I just asking too much, and keppra levels aren't the norm? Oh, and we do deal with neuro stuff, so I feel like being able to do standard neuro-related labwork shouldn't be this damn difficult.

2 comments:

Aesop said...

You are correct, they're retarded.

Everywhere I've worked, laboratory are the biggest unsung heroes/f***-ups in the entire healthcare chain.

Good lab rats are invisible and everything goes right; horrible ones are insufferable everydamnday.

Endeavor to persevere.

Anonymous said...

My home hospital is super rural (8000 population in-town served). Our freaking TSH tests have to be shipped out, nevermind Keppra, lol! But I feel your pain... it would be nice to get results in a timely fashion.