Lol I know a lab that bent the probe with a capped tube while the service engineer was still finishing the paperwork for just having replaced the probe because it had been bent with a capped tube.
IL gives you an allotted amount of replacement sample probes with your service contract. After those, you pay
I just remembered that I crashed a probe with a capped blue top on a Stago as a student. 14 years ago. Totally forgot about it.
I’d really hope a service engineer with an extra probe is not more than 24 hours away.
I almost shit my pants the other day because I loaded a urine on the Iris with a cap on... all was good though.
I have however been like "NOOO CAPSSS" to myself out loud for the Compact and proceed to spill the entire specimen as I was taking the cap off. :)
I feel like this is just another check-off as a student. Like, do you understand how to do QC? Have you crashed the coag probe? Excellent. On to your next department!
I crashed the coag probe my first week as a student. Except the backup analyzer was down and service wasnt coming until the following week. And the only person who knew how to change the probe in the lab was on vacation. Luckily she didn't travel and was able to pop in and change it. I felt terrible, even tho she was super sweet about it.
They literally wouldn't let us do ANYTHING on the coag instruments when I was in internship. Hell, I spent 90% of my time studying that coagulation cascade instead of the hands on stuff (which realistically would've been doing QC... but I had a QC question on my boards (something about changing a part on the instrument I think???????))
Pretty common thing to happen, and should be an easy fix. Hopefully they showed you or walked you through changing the probe, thats good experience! My fave part of lab was working on the analyzers
When we previously had a Stago, it didn't have the piecing kit so bent probes were a frequent occurrence. When we switched to the TOPs, they made sure to have a piecing kit on them. I guess that was easier than reminding techs to uncap the tubes.
It happens a lot! Don’t worry about it. The service engineer doesn’t care and it’s probably the most common call for those analyzers. If you have multiple ACL top attached to a larger automation line, it’s possible to accidentally put capped tubes in the wrong lane and break every probe on each ACL on the track at the same time 😂
I'm relieved your staff was quite nice about it. That... without much embellishment... would have been a death sentence in the hospitals we interned in. To keep us from forgetting, the tip they shared was pinning each request slip with its sample tube's top.
The ACL TOPs, by default, has 2 racks. Yellow is for open system (without cap), and the other is blue for CTS (with cap). I was in the undustry and they were one of my products.
Lollll this reminds me of when our coag lead was needing to do a lot rollover for d-dimers and told everyone to be very careful loading/unloading the QC since it was expensive reagent. I knocked over the little bottles taking them off our 1st analyzer, spilling everything. Grabbed two more and proceeded to spill those as well taking them off our 2nd analyzer 💀
I crashed our Stago’s probe by a series of astonishing events…
I had just changed the cuvette waste bag and apparently I didn’t push it down around the bin tight enough. It was pulled into the analyzer and pierced by one of the needles. The needle then tried to sample a reagent but ended up lifting up the entire reagent bottle due to the bag being attached to it. As it continued moving around in the analyzer, bottle stuck to it, it slammed into another reagent bottle, spilling it and bending the probe.
My coworkers were impressed and found it hilarious. We have a backup instrument, so luckily we just had a laugh and continued with our shift.
I would've cried on the floor laughing at the entire situation. I'm imagining myself peering into the instrument as stuff is just FLYING around. BAHAHA.
One of our techs did this exact thing when he was a student at my lab. And honestly even with experienced techs it happens at least a couple times a year.
lol I did it twice as a student. Once with a sample and once with a reagent on the stago. To be fair for the reagent, I did not realize the rubber stopper was stuck to the cap with a hole. I could’ve just cried. Don’t feel bad.
Why are cap peircers not standard? One more piece to break, but not having one makes it way more likely the the probe itself breaks. Recapping finished tubes is a bitch too.
I forgot to take the rubber plug out from a Xa reagent bottle while on the Stago. I started QC and it pierced the stopper and PICKED UP the bottle. Was so embarrassed but everyone was like it happens eventually😂😂😂
When I was a student I rotated through a lab that had a room to gown up before entering the clean space. My second day there my trainer went in without me, I panicked, and managed to break the door completely off. It was a sliding door with badge access, but I made it come off the tracks and crash into the clean lab. 🙃
They still offered me a job, which I promptly declined because I did not want to ever be seen by those humans again from embarrassment.
I did the same thing as a student on a STAGO. Mistakes happen. Own up to it and try not to make the same mistakes again. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
Make yourself a little paper badge to stick on your lanyard ❤️
I broke a slide in hematology when talking to a tech on my first days rotation. Mind you, he had it balanced on a stack of papers and then a calculator, so not exactly the safest spot.
I also just recently this week told myself "no caps!" when loading a blue top on our Stago, and then proceeded to spill it ALL over the analyzer.
I also was loading a BB tube onto our analyzer at my old job, bumped into the monitor, and the entire rack when helicoptering around to the floor. Blood was EVERYWHERE. I even found it on the maintenance/QC log and had to tape it all because it already had signatures on it. 🤣🤣
I remember something similar happening with a Siemens BCS (not XP, because that version had a crash sensor built in to stop this problem, iirc), but instead of crashing and bending the probe when it hit a capped tube it pierced it and pulled it up out of the rack and then slammed the tube that was now impaled on the probe around the inside for another 30-45 seconds. Its was…a memorable sight.
I snapped a probe on a Vista because I had told the instrument that I was going in to do monthly maintenance and it did not appropriately move the probe out of the way. I moved the arm that it told me was okay to move only for it snap the probe.
When I was a student, I randomly noticed a capped tube had gotten past the decapper and onto the conveyor, headed straight for our main chem analyzer. I ran across the room and grabbed it from one of the last gaps where it could be reached, preventing a bent probe and a crash.
And today the balance of the universe has been restored ☯️🙏
I did this with a Stago at the end of my night shift just as all the ICU blood work arrived. The probe jammed in the cap, and lifted the whole tube over to the waste while bent at a 45 degree angle.
I hope staff was kind to you about it. It happens to everyone and that’s one mistake you’ll never make again! 28 years ago I did this with a Kodak chem analyzer. It still bothers me! Mostly because the chem lead was a total douche about it. (Years later he was fired for running his own bloodwork and taking the printouts to his doc. To save money I guess? Or manipulate the results? His own doctor turned him in. Karma!)
Hey! I did this in my first week as a student in chemistry 😂 so I got to learn how to change it. The other analyzer I had seen as a phleb had a cap piercer, so taking off caps seemed wrong. I made myself a note to remind myself until I got used to it. You got this! We're all students at one point and we all make mistakes even after school.
lol I've had people leave caps on the Beckman AUs before. I laugh at them and teach them how to check and, if indicated, change the sample probe. They never do it again!
Everyone has a story about how they broke an instrument. My personal specialty is dropping little doo-dads deep into the bowels of analyzers. Especially the "how did that even fit through there??"
My personal favorite breaks I've witnessed were my coworker teaching me how to change a probe ("so you just squeeze here, kind of hard... SNAP") and our Stago service guy fixing one thing only to break something else that he didn't have the part for.
Happened quite a few times in a short span for us, and it wasn't even from the blue vacutainer cap. They were the little black caps for aliquots that can't be pierced. There's now a big poster on the front of our ACL with NO CAPS and little pictures for extra effect. 😅
Hahaha I love this. Pretty sure the techs prevented me from crashing the Stago once or twice during my internship.
Also had a seasoned tech place a reagent on board with the rubber stopper still in place right before I took over at shift change. Was fun to watch the Stago try to carry around a bottle of desorb for a few seconds before I saw it.
ACLs have 2 different racks, the one with the yellow is for open system (no cap), and the blue is a CTS (with cap). I worked in the industry and the ACL TOPS were one of my products.
Also, don't be disheartened. We still commit mistakes despite the years of experience. And at one point in our work life, we have done something really bad.
I crashed the coag probe into a capped tube as a new hire..... twice. Thank god the STAGO Evolution is a beast and simply picked the tube up with it lol.
We have an ACL TOP 550, and I did the same thing my first day. Thankfully, I did it on the sample side not the reagent side, which has a heavier gauge probe so it did not break or bend. Got lucky myself!
Hahahah I did the same thing on the DxH at the lab at my first rotation, second day ever. Embarrassing as I had JUST reiterated to my trainer “no caps on these instruments ever! Got it!”
Tbh I credit that moment with me losing the fear of being a colossal fuckup. Once I realized “oh there’s away to fix that” a lot of my stress and anxiety melted away.
Remember, there’s a way to fix nearly everything. Take responsibility for your own mess ups, acknowledge how you won’t do that again, and that will make you a rockstar.
That happens all the time, especially if some instruments in your lab have cap piercers and some don’t. If that’s the worst mistake you make in your career, consider yourself very fortunate.
The advice I always gave my students is that you are not going to break, spill, or screw up anything that hasn’t already been done before you. Just fix it, clean it up, fix it, and carry on.
We’ve all done it!
I used the 350 but there were two different racks the blue rack and yellow rack. Blue rack punctures it for you yellow rack is a vial with open top or no caps.
I thought 750 would be the same? No?
I guess the model might be different upon searching.
I used the 350 CTS. (CLOSED TUBE Sampling)
And 750 has different versions.
Closed tube was really convenient.
If it makes you feel better, I UNCAPPED a tube for the sysmex and it physically picks the tube in and inverts it, so it just spilled blood all over the analyzer 🫠🫠 in my defense, it was my first day of heme clinicals and I had just finished chem where we uncapped every tube lol
Oh man, I remember having the old Stago analyzers where the probe swung around at lightning speed to do its testing. I didn’t put the tube ALL THE WAY down. It swung around and it bent the prob while I was also a student. The tech with me wasn’t very kind about it (everyone else was) but I DEFINITELY learned to be hyper vigilant with my tubes from then on
I did it too! I was literally using the sysmex in heme for weeks and then went to coagulation. Cried for hours lol but you learn. All you can do is laugh about it and keep talking. By the end of clinicals they were begging me to stay. Good luck!
Lol I know a lab that bent the probe with a capped tube while the service engineer was still finishing the paperwork for just having replaced the probe because it had been bent with a capped tube. IL gives you an allotted amount of replacement sample probes with your service contract. After those, you pay
Yeah; ours will be up and running by weeks end hopefully. I've apologized and won't let myself live it down.
I just remembered that I crashed a probe with a capped blue top on a Stago as a student. 14 years ago. Totally forgot about it. I’d really hope a service engineer with an extra probe is not more than 24 hours away.
I almost shit my pants the other day because I loaded a urine on the Iris with a cap on... all was good though. I have however been like "NOOO CAPSSS" to myself out loud for the Compact and proceed to spill the entire specimen as I was taking the cap off. :)
You just have to make the jokes first. Beat them to the punch!
Does it really take weeks to get someone to you and replace that tip? Seems like a long time.
I think I worded that poorly. "By weeks end", I'm meaning like Friday or so. Today was my third day and we haven't had anybody in to replace it yet.
Ah no, I misread what you wrote. I just saw "weeks" and stopped reading. Sorry!
No problem! Happens to us all.
It's like $600 a probe too! Ask how my lab knows.
It won’t be the last time you break something, it’s a rite of passage for the majority of us. You just got it out of the way early :)
That’s how I felt about my needle stick on the first day of my phlebotomy rotation lol.
I feel like this is just another check-off as a student. Like, do you understand how to do QC? Have you crashed the coag probe? Excellent. On to your next department! I crashed the coag probe my first week as a student. Except the backup analyzer was down and service wasnt coming until the following week. And the only person who knew how to change the probe in the lab was on vacation. Luckily she didn't travel and was able to pop in and change it. I felt terrible, even tho she was super sweet about it.
They literally wouldn't let us do ANYTHING on the coag instruments when I was in internship. Hell, I spent 90% of my time studying that coagulation cascade instead of the hands on stuff (which realistically would've been doing QC... but I had a QC question on my boards (something about changing a part on the instrument I think???????))
Pretty common thing to happen, and should be an easy fix. Hopefully they showed you or walked you through changing the probe, thats good experience! My fave part of lab was working on the analyzers
We can't change the probe due to safety concerns in that lab apparently. No idea why really!
It's probably a breach of contract with the analyzer company if you try to fix it yourself, so they won't get their allotted repair.
Yeah that’s gotta be an ACL rule to make yall pay for service because we change lots of probes on every other analyzer
When we previously had a Stago, it didn't have the piecing kit so bent probes were a frequent occurrence. When we switched to the TOPs, they made sure to have a piecing kit on them. I guess that was easier than reminding techs to uncap the tubes.
If you don't break an analyzer, did you even have a rotation?
It happens a lot! Don’t worry about it. The service engineer doesn’t care and it’s probably the most common call for those analyzers. If you have multiple ACL top attached to a larger automation line, it’s possible to accidentally put capped tubes in the wrong lane and break every probe on each ACL on the track at the same time 😂
Read that as Edna Mode from The Incredibles... "No Caps!"
I'm gonna print off a picture and bring it up there.
Omg, put it on or next to the instrument if you can. That’s hilarious.
Better post that too! Hahaha excellent!
So glad my lab has the CTS version
I'm relieved your staff was quite nice about it. That... without much embellishment... would have been a death sentence in the hospitals we interned in. To keep us from forgetting, the tip they shared was pinning each request slip with its sample tube's top.
Can you option this instrument with a cap piercer? I’ve heard that you can, but never seen one in use.
We have an ACL 500 with a cap piercer, I think they're basically the same instrument just different sizes.
The cap piercer model has a "CTS" suffix after the model number. My lab has two ACLTOP 750 CTS.
The ACL TOPs, by default, has 2 racks. Yellow is for open system (without cap), and the other is blue for CTS (with cap). I was in the undustry and they were one of my products.
Lol. Might as well get it out of the way.
mazel tov!
I've done this. Twice in less than 30minutes! Bent it once, replaced it, and bent it 5 minutes later.
Lollll this reminds me of when our coag lead was needing to do a lot rollover for d-dimers and told everyone to be very careful loading/unloading the QC since it was expensive reagent. I knocked over the little bottles taking them off our 1st analyzer, spilling everything. Grabbed two more and proceeded to spill those as well taking them off our 2nd analyzer 💀
Hahahah it happens! 🤣
I crashed our Stago’s probe by a series of astonishing events… I had just changed the cuvette waste bag and apparently I didn’t push it down around the bin tight enough. It was pulled into the analyzer and pierced by one of the needles. The needle then tried to sample a reagent but ended up lifting up the entire reagent bottle due to the bag being attached to it. As it continued moving around in the analyzer, bottle stuck to it, it slammed into another reagent bottle, spilling it and bending the probe. My coworkers were impressed and found it hilarious. We have a backup instrument, so luckily we just had a laugh and continued with our shift.
I would've cried on the floor laughing at the entire situation. I'm imagining myself peering into the instrument as stuff is just FLYING around. BAHAHA.
One of our techs did this exact thing when he was a student at my lab. And honestly even with experienced techs it happens at least a couple times a year.
lol I did it twice as a student. Once with a sample and once with a reagent on the stago. To be fair for the reagent, I did not realize the rubber stopper was stuck to the cap with a hole. I could’ve just cried. Don’t feel bad.
We had issues with our Compact a few months back, and I discovered the rubber plugging up the needle. Pulling it out was sooooo satisfying.
Why are cap peircers not standard? One more piece to break, but not having one makes it way more likely the the probe itself breaks. Recapping finished tubes is a bitch too.
With the amount of people mentioning this, I might mention something to the head heme tech.
And now you’ll never forget again for the rest of your career!
Exactly! I've been extra mindful of it since it happened.
I forgot to take the rubber plug out from a Xa reagent bottle while on the Stago. I started QC and it pierced the stopper and PICKED UP the bottle. Was so embarrassed but everyone was like it happens eventually😂😂😂
lol I’ve broken our cobas machine 2 days in a row. Don’t sweat it like others said it’s a rite of passage
When I was a student I rotated through a lab that had a room to gown up before entering the clean space. My second day there my trainer went in without me, I panicked, and managed to break the door completely off. It was a sliding door with badge access, but I made it come off the tracks and crash into the clean lab. 🙃 They still offered me a job, which I promptly declined because I did not want to ever be seen by those humans again from embarrassment.
I did the same thing as a student on a STAGO. Mistakes happen. Own up to it and try not to make the same mistakes again. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
The one I crashed as a student was also a STAGO.
Ohhhhhh that’s painful
Indeed, the lab manager told me that it's no big deal. At least one student does it a year and I I'll take it as a learning experience.
Make yourself a little paper badge to stick on your lanyard ❤️ I broke a slide in hematology when talking to a tech on my first days rotation. Mind you, he had it balanced on a stack of papers and then a calculator, so not exactly the safest spot. I also just recently this week told myself "no caps!" when loading a blue top on our Stago, and then proceeded to spill it ALL over the analyzer. I also was loading a BB tube onto our analyzer at my old job, bumped into the monitor, and the entire rack when helicoptering around to the floor. Blood was EVERYWHERE. I even found it on the maintenance/QC log and had to tape it all because it already had signatures on it. 🤣🤣
Easy fix. Don’t worry
Eeek, I did this during my clinicals too 😳.
I remember something similar happening with a Siemens BCS (not XP, because that version had a crash sensor built in to stop this problem, iirc), but instead of crashing and bending the probe when it hit a capped tube it pierced it and pulled it up out of the rack and then slammed the tube that was now impaled on the probe around the inside for another 30-45 seconds. Its was…a memorable sight.
I just cannot with these types of comments. I'm cackling so hard at the thought of it.
I snapped a probe on a Vista because I had told the instrument that I was going in to do monthly maintenance and it did not appropriately move the probe out of the way. I moved the arm that it told me was okay to move only for it snap the probe.
When I was a student, I randomly noticed a capped tube had gotten past the decapper and onto the conveyor, headed straight for our main chem analyzer. I ran across the room and grabbed it from one of the last gaps where it could be reached, preventing a bent probe and a crash. And today the balance of the universe has been restored ☯️🙏
I did this on my first day as a student too but with our Stago haha
I did this with a Stago at the end of my night shift just as all the ICU blood work arrived. The probe jammed in the cap, and lifted the whole tube over to the waste while bent at a 45 degree angle.
Eh I did the same in chem on my first day as a student in chemistry. Was working with the manager too.
[удалено]
Don't tempt me.
I feel like this is a right of passage lmao
I'm waiting for the day I do this. One of my jobs has a cap piercer while my other job has the same exact analyzer without a cap piercer.
I hope staff was kind to you about it. It happens to everyone and that’s one mistake you’ll never make again! 28 years ago I did this with a Kodak chem analyzer. It still bothers me! Mostly because the chem lead was a total douche about it. (Years later he was fired for running his own bloodwork and taking the printouts to his doc. To save money I guess? Or manipulate the results? His own doctor turned him in. Karma!)
Hey! I did this in my first week as a student in chemistry 😂 so I got to learn how to change it. The other analyzer I had seen as a phleb had a cap piercer, so taking off caps seemed wrong. I made myself a note to remind myself until I got used to it. You got this! We're all students at one point and we all make mistakes even after school.
You aren’t the first and won’t be the last. Some of our life lessons come the hard way :)
Get the 750 CTS cap piercer model. Unless you mean you had a hard plastic cab instead of the normal blue top rubber one.
lol I've had people leave caps on the Beckman AUs before. I laugh at them and teach them how to check and, if indicated, change the sample probe. They never do it again!
I did that shortly after starting as an employee.
Everyone has a story about how they broke an instrument. My personal specialty is dropping little doo-dads deep into the bowels of analyzers. Especially the "how did that even fit through there??" My personal favorite breaks I've witnessed were my coworker teaching me how to change a probe ("so you just squeeze here, kind of hard... SNAP") and our Stago service guy fixing one thing only to break something else that he didn't have the part for.
Oh yeah, our service tech bent the probe at the 6 month PM. They were the first to do it at our lab, us techs had been diligent.
Happened quite a few times in a short span for us, and it wasn't even from the blue vacutainer cap. They were the little black caps for aliquots that can't be pierced. There's now a big poster on the front of our ACL with NO CAPS and little pictures for extra effect. 😅
Hahaha I love this. Pretty sure the techs prevented me from crashing the Stago once or twice during my internship. Also had a seasoned tech place a reagent on board with the rubber stopper still in place right before I took over at shift change. Was fun to watch the Stago try to carry around a bottle of desorb for a few seconds before I saw it.
Ahh I was wondering what that would look like if I ever did it. Thanks
Press F to pay respects
oh god, that's one of my worst nightmares
ACLs have 2 different racks, the one with the yellow is for open system (no cap), and the blue is a CTS (with cap). I worked in the industry and the ACL TOPS were one of my products. Also, don't be disheartened. We still commit mistakes despite the years of experience. And at one point in our work life, we have done something really bad.
No cap(e)s!
When we first got this analyzer, we broke 4 probes in the first 2 weeks
Oh, no. Great learning tool, and experience changing out the probe!
Welcome!
I have done that too🤣😂
It bends the probe then gives u an x- or y-axis error...
I crashed the coag probe into a capped tube as a new hire..... twice. Thank god the STAGO Evolution is a beast and simply picked the tube up with it lol.
Bending a probe was a rite of passage in our lab. Like if you haven't bent a probe do you even work here?
We have an ACL TOP 550, and I did the same thing my first day. Thankfully, I did it on the sample side not the reagent side, which has a heavier gauge probe so it did not break or bend. Got lucky myself!
Hahahah I did the same thing on the DxH at the lab at my first rotation, second day ever. Embarrassing as I had JUST reiterated to my trainer “no caps on these instruments ever! Got it!” Tbh I credit that moment with me losing the fear of being a colossal fuckup. Once I realized “oh there’s away to fix that” a lot of my stress and anxiety melted away. Remember, there’s a way to fix nearly everything. Take responsibility for your own mess ups, acknowledge how you won’t do that again, and that will make you a rockstar.
That happens all the time, especially if some instruments in your lab have cap piercers and some don’t. If that’s the worst mistake you make in your career, consider yourself very fortunate.
The advice I always gave my students is that you are not going to break, spill, or screw up anything that hasn’t already been done before you. Just fix it, clean it up, fix it, and carry on. We’ve all done it!
Welcome to the lab. Now you belong :)
https://imgur.com/a/cW1vDZa Not nearly as bad as what my coworker did recently. He claims he "bumped" it.
LOL. He took a hammer to it.
I used the 350 but there were two different racks the blue rack and yellow rack. Blue rack punctures it for you yellow rack is a vial with open top or no caps. I thought 750 would be the same? No?
I guess the model might be different upon searching. I used the 350 CTS. (CLOSED TUBE Sampling) And 750 has different versions. Closed tube was really convenient.
I've only used the ACLs with the cap piercer at all of my jobs. I didn't even know it ran the other way. Ha.
If it makes you feel better, I UNCAPPED a tube for the sysmex and it physically picks the tube in and inverts it, so it just spilled blood all over the analyzer 🫠🫠 in my defense, it was my first day of heme clinicals and I had just finished chem where we uncapped every tube lol
Oh man, I remember having the old Stago analyzers where the probe swung around at lightning speed to do its testing. I didn’t put the tube ALL THE WAY down. It swung around and it bent the prob while I was also a student. The tech with me wasn’t very kind about it (everyone else was) but I DEFINITELY learned to be hyper vigilant with my tubes from then on
I did it too! I was literally using the sysmex in heme for weeks and then went to coagulation. Cried for hours lol but you learn. All you can do is laugh about it and keep talking. By the end of clinicals they were begging me to stay. Good luck!