Diary of a Trainee Biomedical Scientist 🔬🧪

Patient Story: 70 years old male Upon seeing the GP (On  01.05.20 ), the patient presented with persistent cough,  rash, and shortness of breath, and feeling unwell. Previous medical history: asthma, nose bleeds, recurrent, nasal congestion, fatigue and rash since October 2019.  Patient was referred to a respiratory consultant (as an outpatient) on the  14.05.20 .  The patient was admitted to K hospital, with collapsed lung. Then transferred to another hospital as an inpatient on  21.05.20  with rapidly progressive pulmonary renal syndrome. On the  23.05.20  the patient began haemodialysis, given 3 pulses of IV methylprednisolone soon after and started on cyclophosphamide on  27.05.20 . GP Results:  Urea (2.5-7.0 mmol/L)   Creatinine (60-106 umol/L)   EGFR (>60 mL/min/1.73m2)   CRP (0-10 mg/L)  10.12.18: 5.4  67  >60   01.05.20 7.1 111   58 ...

I am going to put my ego to one side, and just be honest myself.. I can not pipette at all! yeah sure I have used a micropipette before in laboratory settings but all this time I was pipetting incorrectly and no one told me...(until my training officer told me to review my pipetting skills).. Anyway I found 2 useful YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEy_NGDfo_8&t=9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05oolv_y4Pk  The videos shows the common "Don't" and "Do's" when pipetting. Visually watching someone pipette, I feel has helped me better my pipetting skills in a way. Things I did not know before:  When dispensing liquid into a well, the tip needs to be at an angle (10-45 ° ). Plunger needs to be carefully moved back to its resting position (and not too fast!). Pipette tip should not be immersed too far into the liquid (immersion to 2-3mm depth is suitable). If there is remaining liquid in the pipette tip, depress the plu...

Today I attended a teaching session on "Calibration, standardisation, and quality control"(lead by a consultant Clinical Scientist in our department), after the session I undertook a pipetting competency assessment (so I can use it for one of my evidences).                                                                                                     Reflecting on today, I feel that my pipetting technique was off which is why I didn't do particularly well on the assessment. Nevertheless, todays t...