TPN and safety chat

Today I got to watch TPN being made. First they made a TPN bag for a baby, and it was very tiny. They did not even use the machine. Then they made two TPNs for the other two patients in the hospital on TPN. It was cool to see them hook up all the little bottles of KPhos, Lipid, dextrose, etc to the machine so that they could be mixed. I liked seeing all the different liquids run into the bag, especially the lipids. They looked like milk! I was impressed with how thorough they were in double checking everything. Once the pharmacy tech set everything up, somebody else came in to check everything. They also balance their scale every day (more than once a day if it hasn't been used for 90 minutes). Even though I didn't touch anything I still had to wear a gown, booties, mask, bonnet, and gloves. I guess I never realized that making TPN required so much more cleanliness than making regular food.

Today I also gave the second half of my safety lecture. My preceptor told me it went well, but I thought it was a disaster. I had to have people sign two forms and read two others. Trying to pass out that many papers while standing in the middle of the kitchen created mass confusion. Just a word of advice, when passing out multiple papers, go ahead and colate them into a stack for each person. I have to do the same lecture again tomorrow, so now I have little piles ready and paper clipped together. Hopefully it will be less caotic. I also broke the office hole punch today. All in all it was a pretty eventful day :)