How About A Little Discretion

I’ve been putting in some half-days at the cancer center where I worked for two years before starting nursing school. Sometimes, funny things happen there.

For example:

A patient had an HIV blood test ordered, among other things, and when he went to the lab to get it done, one of our lab techs (a spacey woman who lacks common sense sometimes) called out down the hall to the other tech loud enough for anyone around to hear, “I need an HIV test run on that one!” The patient was understandably upset, and complained to his doctor.

The doctor came into the exam area and started telling us about it. He said, “You just don’t do that kind of thing! That’s like me yelling out at the hospital, ‘I need an extra small condom catheter over here!’”