A Little Explanation…Just What the Dr. Ordered!

It was a warm spring day when my student called with a question on her assigned patient. The physician had ordered a stool for Ova and Parasites, and she wanted to know how to collect the specimen.  I told her to obtain the specimen on a tongue blade and take it immediately to the lab.

Shortly after, I was at the elevator when the door opened and there was my student, in the middle of a crowded elevator.  She looked so prim and proper in her crisp student nurse uniform wearing her nursing cap.  Then I noted the uncomfortable faces of everyone else in the elevator.

The student was holding a tongue blade with a large lump of stool precariously balanced on it!

In Lesson Two, I taught the need for proper containers, the labeling of lab specimens, and the importance of the feedback loop in communications!