I was assigned to work in Microbiology for a month because one of their regular staff was out on her maternity leave.
We received all sorts of fun things there. Stinky urine, gooey sputum, and all sorts of body secretions. I’ve plated each one of them, no questions asked. That’s until I came across this really peculiar stool specimen for C diff testing.
The specimen was obtained from an inpatient and was placed inside a sterile urine cup. There was a huge chunk of turd in the cup, plus some liquid that made it look like someone tried to add water to the really solid mass of feces as a prank or something.
I called the nurse and asked why the specimen was like this. She said that because the last specimen was rejected for not being “watery” enough to test for C diff, she added a little water to it.
Oh no that’s not how it works! Too bad I have to tell her the specimen she sent will have to be rejected.
Submitted by:
Alex Friedman
Laboratory Technologist
South Dakota, USA
