I used to work for a high volume Trauma Center and I had gotten a call from one of the medical residents in regard to a patient bleeding on the floor.
The phone call came about 30 minutes after she placed order for 6 superpacks of irradiated platelets. Now we generally only keep 4 units, unless we are in the middle of an MTP and we up the stock to max of seven.
And we don’t keep irradiated unless its needed, then we call in the rad tech for irradiation. Anyways, I had ordered from the red cross to meet her needs. Here’s the call:
Resident: I put in this order a while ago, where are the platelets? I need them now
Me: We do not keep them on hand, I put in a STAT order with the red cross. They should be ready soon.
Resident: This is ridiculous. I cannot believe that we can’t meet the needs of our patient.
Me: I apologize, but platelets have a short shelf life which is why we don’t keep so many on hand.
Resident: Well, this is an emergency. You need to call people in to make more platelets.
Me: ……….
Submitted by:
Jourdan Sainz
Medical Technologist/Scientist
Georgia, USA
Bring in the platelet donors 😎🥸🤓🤪