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Sunday, May 15, 2016

Even the lowly UA has become complicated


UAs. So easy. So routine. One of the easiest things I do as an ER nurse. Used to be anyway....

Now even the lowly UA has become complicated. Instead of taking the UA cup , labeling it and sending it off, now they have added steps.  You, my dears, the UA cup is no longer just a UA cup. It has become a complex specimen creating contraption.

Allow me to elaborate: Your friendly neighborhood urine cup now has a hollow tube in the middle. On the top of the container is a a needle with rubber over it.  Said urine cup comes with two specimen blood type tube with the usual rubber stopper. Once you get the specimen you have to put the tube on the needle and it fills the tube with urine all spiffy like. You send the tube to lab, not the specimen cup. The specimen cup is thrown in a waste basket with all the other urine specimen cups. For some reason the urine is not emptied out before being tossed. Apparently there is a gnome in the basement whose job it is to empty all the urine down the sewer....

My thoughts about all of this: just shoot me now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We not only have the vials that come with the cup to fill . . . we have to get ANOTHER tube that is not included but requested by lab to be included when the urine is sent down. So we get the cup back with urine, hunt around for the third vial that is not included, fill all three (in a specific order) label and remember to state it was a "voided" specimen; and finally walk to the commode, pour the urine out THEN through the cup away but the top of the urine cup (containing a needle "sharp" is disposed in one of TWO containers that are large enough for them. If you do not follow this procedure of disposal you get yelled at and written up. Love nursing!!!!!!

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Aesop said...

1) The needle in the cap makes this a sharps disposal.
2) Still love the things, because it means I'm now another step removed from playing with the pee.
3)Unlike urine cups with crappy plastic molding, test tubes of urine don't explode in the pneumatic tube system, shutting it down forcing a hazmat decon, and necessitating hand-carrying all specimens for the rest of the shift to the lab, thus adding hours to all lab results.
Did I mention that I love these things?