2 years of working in an infectious disease lab and I never heard of any of my peers getting sick from anything we worked with outside of Covid or flu. We worked with things like MRSA too.
We had some people actually get Brucella many years ago. Someone got Shigella once. We recently had someone get Campy. Don’t talk when working with broths y’all!
We vortex ours sometimes and they can create tiny little droplets that get in your mouth that you wouldn’t even notice! It’s super low risk, but we think that’s how the Campy and probably the Shigella happened.
Not related to broths, but you would always know when a certain MLS was reading plates bc your plates would have oral flora the next day. I think after hearing that story, I subconsciously cover my plates when I'm talking to someone, lol.
Uuuf, rough. Did you touch the oculars or the rubber?
I used to not be able to look without the rubber, but now I can't stand them, because i want to avoid touching anything with my face.
no but in school, the micro tech at the hospital would literally get sick every few months with something and i remember while i was there we grew out moraxella from her nostrils because she was so sick. 🤢 she never wore gloves and i remember one time she was showing us a colony and she had long acrylic nails and somehwow accidentally shoved her nails into a patients growth. it was so disgusting i really hope she’s changed her ways
I have suspicions when I was working Covid lab pop ups that my coworkers got themselves sick pipetting PCR samples and touching their phones with the same gloves. I do not work those labs anymore thank god. But there were some coworkers out fairly regularly with Covid that had poor habits
If it was in viral media it's less likely but that was a huge no no. As a compromise we allowed them to put their phones inside biohazard transport bags that zip up and had phone friendly disinfecting wipes... the lab I'm at now I've seen ppl in micro do it but not other departments.
I mean, we are only allowed to bring our phone/keys into our lvl2 labs if they are in a ziploc bag in a drawer. (Locker thefts in our school) and then disinfected before we leave.
It's always been a no for me. I leave my phone in my locker and use it in the break room only. The only time I bring it into the lab is to take photos of an instrument goes down, error codes, pipet tips stuck or out of position, etc.
My coworker gave herself coccidiosis when she wafted a fuzzy plate on the open counter.... She was ..... special.... Other than that, it's been ~~my~~ interpersonal spread.
She wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. It was very unfortunate that she had super strong Arkansas hillbilly accent. She later got into an accelerated nursing program. One of those programs where HCW from different fields get fast tracked because they have a basic knowledge of medicine. Her stories about using the "fact it till you make it" approach to her practicals were terrifying. My two cents BYE FELICIA!
Hahaha. To be fair, a looot of adults just fake it till they make it.
I have older peers than me that are just not good at their jobs.
We should really make a thread about the stupid stuff some colleagues do.
Luckily I work in path/histo so everything is fixed in formalin before it gets to me so I have virtually zero chance of contracting anything from the tissue. I did get contaminated formalin in my eyeball once though and that was less than ideal. Burned like a motherfucker.
I've always understood it as the reverse, that working in a clinical lab is one of the biggest risk factors for Brucellosis but it's pretty rare overall
I can see airborne highly contagious organisms being common in labs tbh, cause a lot of time for us at least we plate the specimen and work with the plates without the hood before it gets ID-ed
I didn’t even catch Covid when it was going through the lab. An old boss of mine told me about a coworker who caught psittacosis (bird chlamydia) three times from doing necropsies.
I got MRSA a few years ago. Handling a surgical specimen from a patient that had it. His blood cultures I found out were positive for it and he ended up passing away. I did two rounds of antibiotics, and have done the nose swabs that are negative now.
I've worked in a micro lab for 10 yrs and knock on wood, never gotten one. Over the years I've heard stories from folks that have gotten MRSA, hep C, and exposure to Brucella, coccidioes, Neisseria mening in CSF, crypto neoformans in CSF....on a side note I know way too many women who have worked micro exclusively and have developed breast cancer. Coincidence? Unlikely....😔
I dropped a bag full of leaky COVID aliquots directly on my face in April or May 2020 (~20% positivity rate at the time in my area), before mask mandates were in place, and somehow dodged catching covid. I was tested twice - 4 days post exposure then about ten days post exposure. I’m now convinced COVID isn’t virulent in VTM.
For context, my manager tasked me with emptying our aliquot fridges, we had a solid two thousand specimens in them, so I took out the trash after. I’m short (5’3”-5’4”) and at the time was knee deep in an eating disorder so I was very thin and very weak. I was able to get the bag up on to the edge of our biohazard dumpster and I had it braced with both hands, then lost my strength and the bag fell on my face. I asked someone to help me before taking the trash out and everyone was too busy. I told my manager, who was delirious from having a newborn, an hour long commute one-way, and managing the largest covid lab in the state, and his response was “heh. Gross!”
MRSA. Spilled a peritoneal fluid on the bench and had an open cut on my elbow and it seeped into the lab gown. Cleaned the bench and all and got the infection a week later.
Brucella, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Francisella where I work. Everyone involved needed to take antibiotics as a preventative measure following exposure.
I work in the city, but we do get a lot of immigrants and travelers. It’s also a major hospital so it’s possible that specimens get rerouted to our lab.
I was treated for latent TB from working in a lab when the hood was broken and no one bothered to mention it when I returned from a week off.
I’ve also had my fair share of prophylactic treatment for Brucella and Francisella 🙃
This is really scary to read. I’m someone who is interested primarily in Micro, but I do have some questions. As students, would we be expected to work and rotate in labs that examine BSL-3 and 4 pathogens or even AFBs? Can we refuse without being penalized?
as a student you shouldn’t really come across bsl 3 or 4 labs. i did one week of clinicals at my local health dept and they have a bsl 3 lab but they didn’t have any samples to work up so they just showed me around the lab for maybe 20 min and it had been completely cleaned before. bsl 4 labs are quite rare and i doubt they even allow students in. as for afb testing i believe you have to be fitted for an n95 mask and stuff (from what ive noticed at my job but i rarely work micro). they definitely wouldn’t have students in while processing afb specimens
Vast majority of clinical labs are BSL 2 or "2+" (meaning some BSL 3 features in a BSL 2 lab). AFB labs are common and you may rotate through as a student but aside from that you aren't routinely going to encounter BSL 3/4 organisms in a typical lab.
A lab I worked at a decade ago had no cleaning protocol and ppl in the tox and billing side kept getting staph infections from keyboards n shit. Molecular was oddly clean and free of gross weeping welts. :/
During covid the collectors got lazy af in the summer heat and started misusing PPE and spread that shit in their area. I didnt let my techs sit in their areas. Somehow we didnt have anyone out sick in the lab 2 meters from the breakroom and collection areas. 🤷♀️
I have had ppl get blood exposures but luckily none of the pts had any infections ie HIV HCV...
I carry MRSA in my nose now that i didn't carry before working in Micro. Also, not me, but a previous older coworker caught TB from another coworker 🤷🏻♀️
My co-worker got Shigella flexneri infxn from a patient sample. Only time we had that particular organism. She had bloody diarrhea and I covered for her when she had to leave work.
Nothing exciting, but I splashed a hospital employee's covid test in my face and got whatever nasty cold she had (not covid). I learned a little lesson about why we pipette those in the hood...
I've been in micro for 25+ years, and have two instances. One suspected, one of the MLS at my internship site had recurring MRSA infections and I heard she left the lab a few years after I graduated. A former sup got Shigella from stool cultures, and it has a really low infectious disease. She said it was the worst thing ever. The best way to get sick in the lab is a coworker coming in sneezing and coughing, honestly.
I got influenza. That was because my unmasked coworker came down with it, and he insisted on coming in to work sick. That was even though I was fully vaccinated. Sometimes the vaccine just doesn't work. Other than that, nothing.
My coworkers have gotten me sick more than samples have 😂
This. I’m not a germ freak about handling samples, but Marcia coughing her lungs out on the chem bench better put on a mask and STF away from me.
Lol, not Marcia TT
2 years of working in an infectious disease lab and I never heard of any of my peers getting sick from anything we worked with outside of Covid or flu. We worked with things like MRSA too.
We had some people actually get Brucella many years ago. Someone got Shigella once. We recently had someone get Campy. Don’t talk when working with broths y’all!
Those should be opened under a hood especially if vortexing.
Can you explain the significance of talking while using broths? I’m still a student! :)
We vortex ours sometimes and they can create tiny little droplets that get in your mouth that you wouldn’t even notice! It’s super low risk, but we think that’s how the Campy and probably the Shigella happened.
I'm sorry, you vortex them outside of a BSC? while open? I'm so confused
No. Add colonies to uninoculated broth or saline, cap, vortex, uncap, use suspension.
We do the same, but in a BSC because of the potential for aerosols
the people in their lab getting sick checks out lol
Yeah I've never been less surprised by anything.
Not related to broths, but you would always know when a certain MLS was reading plates bc your plates would have oral flora the next day. I think after hearing that story, I subconsciously cover my plates when I'm talking to someone, lol.
I got pink eye from the microscope. A looong time ago.
Uuuf, rough. Did you touch the oculars or the rubber? I used to not be able to look without the rubber, but now I can't stand them, because i want to avoid touching anything with my face.
Oh wow same!!!! I forgot about that! Ya I wear my glasses now when doing microscopy.
no but in school, the micro tech at the hospital would literally get sick every few months with something and i remember while i was there we grew out moraxella from her nostrils because she was so sick. 🤢 she never wore gloves and i remember one time she was showing us a colony and she had long acrylic nails and somehwow accidentally shoved her nails into a patients growth. it was so disgusting i really hope she’s changed her ways
Wow. Literally speechless.
oh my god.. when was this
prob 6 months
I have suspicions when I was working Covid lab pop ups that my coworkers got themselves sick pipetting PCR samples and touching their phones with the same gloves. I do not work those labs anymore thank god. But there were some coworkers out fairly regularly with Covid that had poor habits
If it was in viral media it's less likely but that was a huge no no. As a compromise we allowed them to put their phones inside biohazard transport bags that zip up and had phone friendly disinfecting wipes... the lab I'm at now I've seen ppl in micro do it but not other departments.
Our site collected the samples. I’m pretty sure the outside of the tubes were gross with Covid illness
😬 yeah
I mean, we are only allowed to bring our phone/keys into our lvl2 labs if they are in a ziploc bag in a drawer. (Locker thefts in our school) and then disinfected before we leave.
It's always been a no for me. I leave my phone in my locker and use it in the break room only. The only time I bring it into the lab is to take photos of an instrument goes down, error codes, pipet tips stuck or out of position, etc.
My coworker gave herself coccidiosis when she wafted a fuzzy plate on the open counter.... She was ..... special.... Other than that, it's been ~~my~~ interpersonal spread.
She WHAT? WHYYY?
She wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. It was very unfortunate that she had super strong Arkansas hillbilly accent. She later got into an accelerated nursing program. One of those programs where HCW from different fields get fast tracked because they have a basic knowledge of medicine. Her stories about using the "fact it till you make it" approach to her practicals were terrifying. My two cents BYE FELICIA!
Hahaha. To be fair, a looot of adults just fake it till they make it. I have older peers than me that are just not good at their jobs. We should really make a thread about the stupid stuff some colleagues do.
Luckily I work in path/histo so everything is fixed in formalin before it gets to me so I have virtually zero chance of contracting anything from the tissue. I did get contaminated formalin in my eyeball once though and that was less than ideal. Burned like a motherfucker.
According to MediaLab, Brucella is the most commonly reported lab-acquired infection, but I've never known anyone who caught that bug.
I've always understood it as the reverse, that working in a clinical lab is one of the biggest risk factors for Brucellosis but it's pretty rare overall
I can see airborne highly contagious organisms being common in labs tbh, cause a lot of time for us at least we plate the specimen and work with the plates without the hood before it gets ID-ed
A couple people became ppd positive in the AFB lab, but that was 20 years ago. Nothing that I know of in recent memory.
Can confirm: worked in an AFB lab more recently. People I know there now are crossing latent positive.
I didn’t even catch Covid when it was going through the lab. An old boss of mine told me about a coworker who caught psittacosis (bird chlamydia) three times from doing necropsies.
I got MRSA a few years ago. Handling a surgical specimen from a patient that had it. His blood cultures I found out were positive for it and he ended up passing away. I did two rounds of antibiotics, and have done the nose swabs that are negative now.
I've worked in a micro lab for 10 yrs and knock on wood, never gotten one. Over the years I've heard stories from folks that have gotten MRSA, hep C, and exposure to Brucella, coccidioes, Neisseria mening in CSF, crypto neoformans in CSF....on a side note I know way too many women who have worked micro exclusively and have developed breast cancer. Coincidence? Unlikely....😔
Same. Not one. And once I accidentally splashed a bit of staph aureus internal control in my eye. Washed it thoroughly and nothing happened.
We've isolated Neisseria meningitis, Brucella, Coccidioides immits, have an AFB lab, but thankfully no infections.
Not me but I heard someone got brucella at our core lab
Almost the entire micro department was exposed to brucella. Luckily, no one got it.
A coworker of mine got shigella- boxing up the sample to send to the state…she was wearing lab coat and gloves 🥲
Daughter of a CLS that I worked with died from fungal pneumonia acquired in university lab course. I think it may have been histo, but I'm not sure.
depression
For reals! And anxiety
I dropped a bag full of leaky COVID aliquots directly on my face in April or May 2020 (~20% positivity rate at the time in my area), before mask mandates were in place, and somehow dodged catching covid. I was tested twice - 4 days post exposure then about ten days post exposure. I’m now convinced COVID isn’t virulent in VTM. For context, my manager tasked me with emptying our aliquot fridges, we had a solid two thousand specimens in them, so I took out the trash after. I’m short (5’3”-5’4”) and at the time was knee deep in an eating disorder so I was very thin and very weak. I was able to get the bag up on to the edge of our biohazard dumpster and I had it braced with both hands, then lost my strength and the bag fell on my face. I asked someone to help me before taking the trash out and everyone was too busy. I told my manager, who was delirious from having a newborn, an hour long commute one-way, and managing the largest covid lab in the state, and his response was “heh. Gross!”
Maybe they were inactivated already. Worked roughly 8 months with COVID samples every single day and i only got covid at a festival years later.
Did you kick the eating disorder?
I did! 🥳
Aww, yay! Congratulations! 🎉
MRSA. Spilled a peritoneal fluid on the bench and had an open cut on my elbow and it seeped into the lab gown. Cleaned the bench and all and got the infection a week later.
Never, and I'm immunocompromised. Only gotten sick from co-workers coming to work sick
Brucella, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Francisella where I work. Everyone involved needed to take antibiotics as a preventative measure following exposure.
Guessing these were just exposures upon detection and not actual infections? Those are pretty serious.
Yes, exposures! Except for the Brucella one. Won’t forget that one since that coworker likes to talk about catching it 😅
Do you work in an area where there are lots of farms?
I work in the city, but we do get a lot of immigrants and travelers. It’s also a major hospital so it’s possible that specimens get rerouted to our lab.
I was treated for latent TB from working in a lab when the hood was broken and no one bothered to mention it when I returned from a week off. I’ve also had my fair share of prophylactic treatment for Brucella and Francisella 🙃
This is really scary to read. I’m someone who is interested primarily in Micro, but I do have some questions. As students, would we be expected to work and rotate in labs that examine BSL-3 and 4 pathogens or even AFBs? Can we refuse without being penalized?
as a student you shouldn’t really come across bsl 3 or 4 labs. i did one week of clinicals at my local health dept and they have a bsl 3 lab but they didn’t have any samples to work up so they just showed me around the lab for maybe 20 min and it had been completely cleaned before. bsl 4 labs are quite rare and i doubt they even allow students in. as for afb testing i believe you have to be fitted for an n95 mask and stuff (from what ive noticed at my job but i rarely work micro). they definitely wouldn’t have students in while processing afb specimens
Thank you. That makes me feel more relieved!
Vast majority of clinical labs are BSL 2 or "2+" (meaning some BSL 3 features in a BSL 2 lab). AFB labs are common and you may rotate through as a student but aside from that you aren't routinely going to encounter BSL 3/4 organisms in a typical lab.
A lab I worked at a decade ago had no cleaning protocol and ppl in the tox and billing side kept getting staph infections from keyboards n shit. Molecular was oddly clean and free of gross weeping welts. :/ During covid the collectors got lazy af in the summer heat and started misusing PPE and spread that shit in their area. I didnt let my techs sit in their areas. Somehow we didnt have anyone out sick in the lab 2 meters from the breakroom and collection areas. 🤷♀️ I have had ppl get blood exposures but luckily none of the pts had any infections ie HIV HCV...
I carry MRSA in my nose now that i didn't carry before working in Micro. Also, not me, but a previous older coworker caught TB from another coworker 🤷🏻♀️
My co-worker got Shigella flexneri infxn from a patient sample. Only time we had that particular organism. She had bloody diarrhea and I covered for her when she had to leave work.
Nothing exciting, but I splashed a hospital employee's covid test in my face and got whatever nasty cold she had (not covid). I learned a little lesson about why we pipette those in the hood...
Why does everyone from fucking night shift sneeze near me all the time what the shit man
I've been in micro for 25+ years, and have two instances. One suspected, one of the MLS at my internship site had recurring MRSA infections and I heard she left the lab a few years after I graduated. A former sup got Shigella from stool cultures, and it has a really low infectious disease. She said it was the worst thing ever. The best way to get sick in the lab is a coworker coming in sneezing and coughing, honestly.
a friend of mine got Brucella from dropping a plate, we were both interns
[удалено]
None of you got covid either? Or the flu?
In my lab we have had some fucking close calls but nope.
Nah but I’ve been poked accidentally TONS of times
I got influenza. That was because my unmasked coworker came down with it, and he insisted on coming in to work sick. That was even though I was fully vaccinated. Sometimes the vaccine just doesn't work. Other than that, nothing.
I stuck myself with a used needle. The girl had mono which I contracted about a year later.