Haematology and blood smears

RE: Haematology and blood smears

Cyonica — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 20:29:43 GMT

Sure! It was this one - https://veterinarycytologyschoolhouse.thinkific.com/courses/mastering-hematology

There are a few others around as well, but I really love the teaching style of the lady who does this one and I felt like it was good value. If you go to "all courses," you should be able to find a couple of free webinars that are like taster sessions of her bigger courses.

RE: Haematology and blood smears

Elaine McBurney — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 20:15:35 GMT

Hey can I ask what cpd course it was?

RE: Haematology and blood smears

stacey bullock — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 12:00:09 GMT

The more you do, the more you can do and the more confident you become.

I used to do a lot of smears for fertility/oestrus checking for mating. There are some really good reference material available from labs if you ask. I know for sure one of the commercial labs used to have vet nurses working in the cytology and histology labs.

So much use for a RVN in practice is a lab nurse. Start small, do an in-house smear everytime you send off haematology, have a look before sending off. Some labs will welcome you're findings, confirm and congratulate :-)

Well done and keep it up!

RE: Haematology and blood smears

Sal the 1st — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 11:53:07 GMT

one of my previous HNs was a vet tech from Michigan

RE: Haematology and blood smears

Cyonica — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 10:13:44 GMT

Thank you, that looks really useful! And you're totally right. An emergency anaemic patient doesn't need to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the lab to diagnose IMHA and get back to us on blood type when we could quickly and easily do all of that in house the same day. I also see techs in the US doing a lot of in house faecal analysis for microorganisms, which I've never seen done here. I recently learned how to do a dry prep of urine in Diff Quik, and one of the first cases I tried it on the slide was smothered in chains of cocci. No need to guess whether that patient had a UTI, or to wait days for culture results to know for sure.

RE: Haematology and blood smears

Sal the 1st — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 03:37:46 GMT

I used to do a lot of blood smears when I worked in a charity hospital - every qbc sample was backed by a smear. Don't really get chance anymore but it is a useful skill to have. It makes me sad when I think of all the stuff we used to get up to that is now sent out and all the skills that have been lost. Egg counts- really easy but nobody does them or sends them out now. Major/minor match for blood transfusions - quick and easy , people just use a kit now - but what happens when you have run out of tests and that emergency comes in? Reticulocyte counts, ESRs and a whole lot more. Used to do my own c+s too which were pretty reliable. Really missing my past as a disease detective now after reading this

if you ever get chance to pick up ones of these would highly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/IDEXX-Guide-Hematology-Rebar-2002-01-01/dp/B01FKSP6D2