Culture Reading
As I've mentioned, I work in the microbiology department. As of now, I've been trained and am on my own reading urine, stool and vaginal cultures; all of our rapid tests, ANAs, O&Ps, and set up of all cultures. In the next few weeks, I'll be learning TB Golds and reading respiratory cultures. The wound cultures and anaerobes won't come until later--it's left to the more experienced techs.
Our lab is starting to do HPVs in the next few weeks, and we just started Fetal Fibronectins this month. Also, the micro department is just beginning to go through the Lean process. All of this together leads to LOTS of learning for me! Thankfully, my department has helpful coworkers--most of them have been here for over 20 years and seem to know everything.
One of the things I like most though, is that no matter how much they each may know, nobody is above asking someone else's opinion about a culture. It's comforting to a newbie like me to know I'm not bothering someone by asking them yet another question. There certainly is a lot to learn in micro, but I'm looking forward to building my knowledge base.
I worked this past weekend and was on stools/vaginal cultures for 4 days in a row. Over the course of the weekend, I identified three Salmonella spp. and a Shigella dysenteriae. Along with those cultures came a wealth of comments to be put in the patient reports, send-outs to the State Lab of Hygeine, crossing my t's and dotting my i's. Needless to say, I think I've got that procedure down pat now.
When I talk with my coworkers about cultures, or sensitivities ... I look forward to the day when that's me. When I'll be able to answer the endless questions of a new tech, or recall when certain organisms never had resistance to such and such antibiotic. I can't even imagine how much my department will change over the years to come, but I think it's going to be an amazing ride!