Culture Shock
Most people assume that doctors know everything but Reddit user texasbornandraised95 discovered that wasn’t the case when one of them demanded that a test on a fungal culture they sent out be sped up.
“I was working a lab assistant shift (I’m a tech) receiving specimens and such, when a doctor phoned the lab. He was very upset that there was a test that was taking far too long in his opinion. I said okay, let’s look at it, and asked what the test was. A fungal culture…
A fungal culture takes at least two weeks to see if anything grows. The patient was in the ER. I politely told him the test was a send out and they generally take about about two weeks or longer depending on the fungus.
He got all huffy and asked why it took so long and is there a way to speed up the process since he wants to discharge the patient. I chuckled a little because this is a common problem with cultures, we’re literally waiting for stuff to grow, we can’t just make them grow faster. I told him we don’t have magical wands that make fungus grow really fast.
He then asked for a lab tech because I was just a lab assistant. I then let him know I was in fact a lab tech with experience in microbiology and I can tell him from first hand experience that fungal cultures are some of the slowest cultures, right up there was AFBs, and assured him that if anything comes of it, we’ll let ER know.
He didn’t really like that, but said fine and hung up.”