Monthly Archives: July 2015

“No one here gets out alive…”

Confessions of a Microbiologist,

We think we have the latest methods, the most up to date innovations, the best manuals & quality controls, the most advanced IT system and the smartest diagnostic algorithms. No one else comes close to our lab. We must be the best!

We are ahead of the game?

Think again….

We sometimes forget that whilst we are busy in our own little world looking after our patch, everyone else is doing the same for their respective laboratories or workplaces. It can therefore come as somewhat of a shock when suddenly it dawns on us that you may not be that advanced after all. You might be ahead in one area, but behind in others.

Do anything and everything you can to visit other labs and meet with colleagues who have different areas of expertise than yourself. Use any excuse you can! It’s not just useful, it is completely essential. See how others do things. Don’t be surprised to find that the issues that your lab face are uncannily similar to other laboratories, both locally and internationally.

The world of laboratory microbiology is currently moving at a frightening pace, certainly quicker than I can ever remember. Think about bacteriology automation, multiplex PCRs and the use of IT logic to develop testing algorithms for starters. No one individual can keep pace with everything.

Team work and information sharing is key in keeping up to speed.

Rest on your laurels and you are dead in the water in this profession.

Michael

 

“Something for the weekend”

Confessions of a Microbiologist,

Molecular testing in the clinical microbiology department has traditionally been performed Monday to Friday 9-5pm. There are various reasons for this. Twenty years ago, this  area was highly specialised hands on work. Turnaround times were long and the results often did not effect an immediate change in patient management.

Times are changing…

Nowadays molecular tests for bacteria and viruses can be performed in real time, with results that can dramatically change the patient’s management. The tests are becoming automated and simplified to the extent that they can often be performed by scientists who are not molecular experts. The newer molecular platforms, being completely enclosed, are “coming out” into the main laboratory, and the whole discipline is becoming more mainstream.

In light of this we need to start thinking of providing “molecular services” not just from Monday to Friday, but during the weekends as well, and overnight when necessary.

The laboratories that succeed in making this sort of progressive change, will be seen as giving the best service to their patients, and will be the laboratories that are still around in twenty years time….

Michael

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and to adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself”

 

“Why bother?”

The Art of Microbiology

 

White_square_with_question_markWhy bother doing a diagnostic test on a patient if there is no specific treatment?

That question is certainly very plausible now. For example multiplex respiratory PCRs are available which diagnose a whole range of respiratory viruses, in real time, for which no specific treatment is available. Ditto that for enteric viral PCRs.

There are a few possible retorts…..

When the diagnosis is established:

  • it may prevent further unnecessary investigation.
  • it may prevent further unnecessary treatment.
  • it may allow earlier discharge.
  • it may have infection control implications (isolation, cohorting etc)

It is a simple and fundamental question. However we often think of the answer in simplistic and fundamental terms.

Michael