ULOG #1 "Medical Test Result Error"

Hello uloggers/steemians! This is my 1st ulog post. I didn’t know about ulog until I followed @surpassinggoogle. Most posts on my feed are ulog posts resteemed by @surpassinggoogle. I had to google about the tag and understood what it was all about. My day was hectic so I couldn’t post this earlier.

My name is kingsley and I work as a lab attendant in a medical research laboratory. As a lab scientist in a medical laboratory, we encounter different kinds of cases from patients on daily basis. So, today at work early in the morning a man walked into the laboratory. The man looked devastated, as if he was carrying the weight of the world’s problem on his shoulders. He enquired to know whether my boss was around, but unfortunately for him my boss was yet to arrive. The man left and in an hour, he came back with my boss and they walked into the boss office. Some minutes later, boss called me into his office and instructed me to carefully collect the man’s blood sample and run a HIV test on the sample. He instructed me to run the test alone, that none of my colleagues should interfere. I have received numerous instructions from my boss, but this one seems different. It was as if the result of the test would determine the fate of our laboratory.

I took the man to the collection room and collected his blood sample. Some minutes later, he left after he must have finished his discussion with my boss. I took the sample and ran the test diligently at the serology section of the laboratory. Thirty minutes later, I checked the result and it was negative. I went back to my boss and told him the result. He exclaimed “Are you sure you followed the necessary procedures to arrive at this conclusion?” I replied “Yes sir”. He insisted that I should go and run the test again using a different test kit. I did as he instructed and at the end the result was still negative. My boss took it upon himself and ran the test using 3 different test kits and the result was still negative.

Out of curiosity, I asked my boss the story behind the blood sample. He narrated to us how the owner of the blood sample was selected with one other relative for blood transfusion. They were selected to donate blood to a relative that was sick in the hospital. The normal procedure is to run some tests on the donors to check for compatibility and infections before the transfusion. So, the hospital ran the tests on them and when the result came out, the man that came to our laboratory was diagnosed of being HIV (+). He was rejected for the transfusion and the hospital went ahead with the transfusion using the supposed HIV (-) relative. The man was disturbed and devastated; he decided to come to our laboratory to run the test once more because he was still in doubt of the shocker he received from the hospital and his doubts were cleared.

When the man came back for his results, my boss gave it to him and you couldn’t believe that the once devastated man that came to our laboratory turned to a different man within some seconds. He was very happy that his doubts have ended up being true. Well, at the end of the day we charged him more than what he would have paid normally and he gladly paid plus the tips he gave us.

Meanwhile, to be sure we sent the man’s blood sample to another laboratory and the result came back as negative.

After all that happened, I wondered and hoped that the supposed HIV (+) blood sample belonged to another patient and not the relative whose blood was used for the transfusion. If at the end the HIV (+) blood sample belonged to the donor, how would the recipient feel? Even though I’m happy for the man that came to our lab, I felt sad for the recipient that received the blood that the hospital claimed to be HIV (-).

This incident taught me a lesson. We shouldn’t always rely on medical test results without running for another test to determine the accuracy and trustworthiness of the result.

Thanks for reading.

Once more I appreciate the pioneer of the ulog tag @surpassinggoogle for creating this wonderful initiative where steemians can share their daily experiences.