Christmas

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

On my way to work....

On my way to work this evening, the wind was blowing, the roads snow and ice packed, and me white knuckled..... I guess I am lucky that I only had to drive 13 miles going 25 miles an hour verses 50 miles as one of the evening employees did on her way home. I do really wish I could have been one of the people that got to watch it from the comforts of their homes. Ahh, the evils of health care, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

I didn't see too many accidents, but there are many schools 2 hours late. I will be hoping for Brian to be at least 2 hours late, as I know he was checking the TV every time the B's came around!

Safe driving to all!

More information on layoffs

I have some more information on the layoffs at North Memorial that I would like to share with you. Many of them are non-patient care, but some are nurses. North Memorial had an employee fitness center that was staffed by 3 personal trainers for 12 hours a day. That will no longer be staffed. One of the food areas (there were 2) is reducing the hours that it is open. Housekeeping and some of the nurses are being let go. This is by no means an all inclusive list, this is just what I have heard.

Some of the reasons that patient care should be affected minimally is that our census is down. People can't afford elective surgeries or to be sick.... they are just avoiding hospitals at all costs. Our total loss for people that could not pay their bills or their co-pays used to be 1 million a year. In the recent months it is 1 million a month...... 12 times higher. Hard to imagine.

As for my status: I have 4 people under me. If we were to go through another round of cutoffs and the lab was affected, it would have to be pretty deep to hit me. On the other hand, it could happen that I would have to switch shifts. I would not enjoy that, but at least I would have a job. We currently have 10 open positions in the lab in which they are not allowing us to hire. Right now we are pretty busy as we are short staffed. The lab also has measurable productivity. It works in our favor.

Hopefully that clears up some of the questions that have been posted.

First round of pink slips....

I don't know if any of you saw the news last night. North Memorial is laying off 380 positions. I luckily have survived.... no one in the lab has been cut. We have been working short staffed for so long, that we really couldn't afford to lose anyone. I feel so bad for all of the people that are being cut. It especially seems like a bad time of the year.

I'm just hoping that there isn't a second round of cuts, who knows if the lab will be as lucky next time.........

Bioterrorism Workshop at Minnesota Department of Health

As most of you know, I work in a hospital lab and have recently started training in microbiology there. This past Thursday, I was given the opportunity to go the Minnesota Department of Health Laboratory and learn about the major agents of bioterrorism. We had lectures and lab on such known organisms as anthrax (Bacillus anthrasis), and black plague (Yersinia pestis), as well as the lesser publicly known agents such as tularemia (Francisella tularensis), and glanders (Burkholderia mallei).

We had lectures on the history of bioterrorism. Without being called as such, the settlers of the New World could have possibly used germ warfare towards the Native Americans by giving them smallpox infested blankets. This is debated among historians, but it is certainly plausible.


In the lab portion, we looked at organisms that had the same biochemical properties as these bioterroristic agents and had to decide if we would send it the Department of Health Laboratories for furthur workup and confirmation. As hospital medical technologists, we are most likely the first ones to see these bugs as people are admitted to the hospital. In the anthrax attacks of September 2001, one of the reports was made by a microbiolist from a hospital. It was a good reminder to remember to look for the zebras in a pack of horses that we see every day.

As an added bonus, channel 5 just happened to be filming a segment on the likliness of bioterrorism and I happened to be in the segment, although breifly.

Here is a link to the story:
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S693623.shtml

Sick Day

I have officially gotten my first of what I hope is not a winter full of sick days. On Tuesday I had a pretty scratchy throat and on Wednesday it turned into a very sore throat. I still do not have the cold that typically goes along with the sore throat, but I am just waiting for it to rear it's ugly head. Since I wasn't feeling that bad physically, I just couldn't talk (a joyous day for Brian, might I add), I decided to get a bunch of stuff done in the afternoon because I was sick of lying in bed. First I decided to go through all of our paperwork and file it more efficiently.

As you can see, it got messier before it got better. It still isn't in perfect shape, but I am working on the rest tonight.

I got some more knitting done:

I also decided to get some storage for my craft room so I can unpack the boxes that belong in there. The two end pieces were pretty easy to put together, the middle one not so much. Brian did help me with these.

Overall a pretty productive day.

Voting and band-aids

I am glad to say that voting was not the cause of my 2 band aids on the same arm.....

Voting: The lines were long which I think is evidence of how important the election is. I was glad to see the turnout. The line for people registering was also respectable... yeah new voters (or people that have moved)!

Band aids: I can proudly say that I did not faint after getting a flu shot and a mantoux test in the same arm within 2 minutes of each other. Another milestone accomplished.

On my way home from voting, I decided to get my car washed. I suddenly remembered why I haven't done it for 2 years. If there would have been a picture of me, I probably would have looked like my youngest nephew at his first car wash, a bit scared. I had to drive in and then at a designated point put my car in nuetral and take my foot off of the brake. I couldn't see a darned thing for about 5 minutes.

As a treat after my very productive and brave day, I decided to get a mushroom and black olive pizza from Papa Murphy's take-n-bake and am going to have a beer!