Ep. 47 | Cindy Martin & Kathy Murchie, Laboratory Services, SGMC Health

Transcript

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- Welcome to another episode of What Brings You in Today? I'm Erika Bennett and I'm Kara Hope Rockwell. And we just wanna thank our listening audience for tuning in. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe so you can stay up to date on all of our new episodes. And if there are any particular topics you're interested in or any guests you'd like us to have on, you can let us know at sgmc.org/podcast.

- Alright, so today we are here with Cindy Martin and Kathy Murchie from Lab Services. So ladies, what brings you in today?

- So we are here today to talk about the laboratory services we provide. Most people in the community probably do not realize that 70% of diagnosis and treatment in this hospital are done based on laboratory services. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today and we're excited to be here.

- Alright, sounds good. I, we were excited to have y'all on because we agree with that lab is something that is performed hundreds of thousands of times throughout the year labs on our patients and a very important indicator to diagnosis.

- We do actually 2.5 million

- Labs.

- Wow. On average per year.

- That's incredible. Yeah. But most people are not aware of that because they just give their blood and they don't know what else happens that's behind the scene. So that's what we wanted to kind of raise awareness of that today. But before we get into that, let's just, if you'll tell us a little bit about your career and kind of what interested you even in and how you got to where you are today.

- So I'm Cindy Martin. I'm the currently in current interim director. It wasn't a role I thought I was gonna have, but we've done hopefully a great job while we've been here. And then I'm here with Kathy Murchie today who's our blood bank specialist. And I'll let her speak on her own. But I kind of ended up in laboratory services by mistake. I was a history major.

- Oh.

- My advisor at VSU said, you know, over there at the technical college they got this whole program called Medical technology and maybe you might wanna go over there and see them 'cause I can't keep you out of the science lab. So I came over here and worked as a phlebotomist. So as many of us, we started a career as a phlebotomist and that's the person that goes out and draws your blood and that's who most people think are lab people. And so I've worn many hats through the years after 44 years. So we're excited.

- I also fell into the laboratory field by accident. My mother was a blood banker here for 22 years and I was a business major and took a biology class and got very interested in the science part of it. And I talked to my mother and other people and they got me into the field. I worked as a generalist for many years working in chemistry and hematology and blood bank and microbiology a little bit. And over the years I've gained experience in blood bank and now I'm the blood bank manager. Been blood bank manager for the last seven years and we're hoping to take this into the future with the trauma program that we've got going on. And the new building that's coming up with the, the maternal services and emergency services that are going to heavily involve the blood bank in our, in the services we provide

- And in our health system. I think you're most commonly referred to as the vampires. Correct. The system. And y'all were Red, red, the red scratch scrub. We did, we were red signify for the lab. So let's talk about some of those services that you mentioned. Let's talk about what labs we offer in regards to breast cancer awareness and detection. We are

- Very excited to bring some new cutting edge technology to this area. We're the only people south of Macon that has brought in this technology. So about 45 days ago we brought in testing for HER two and ERPR testing. So this is testing to help diagnosed a form of breast cancer. So as women we like to plan. So when a person was diagnosed with breast cancer, they had to wait seven, 10 days business days to possibly get a result to start planning their treatment. Well that's not good for mental health. We all know that we like Dr. Google and we can Yeah. Yes. And Dr Google is not your friend but when you, when you don't get your information quickly and timely, then that's where we turn. Okay. So by bringing in this new technology, we have turned that around to two to three business days. And that is so wonderful for these patients. Typically it's two days, but you know, if you get that four o'clock in the afternoon when it may be three days, but that is still so much better than what we were doing. Spoke to the Millers and the Millers says that they're getting their results. Our pathologists are excited to provide that and digital pathology is gonna allow us to do some other great things like in GI and stuff like that as we move forward. So we're really excited about

- That. So that means faster results for the patients?

- Correct.

- More quick treatment that's

- They can start reduced

- Anxiety,

- They can start planning that option. Reduced anxiety. Right. Let's trigger down, are you gonna have to have chemo? Are you gonna be able to take a pill? Are we gonna need to do radiation? Right. Are we gonna need to do

- Surgery?

- Surgery? Yes. I couldn't think of the word. Thank you. Good catch surgery. So we need, we need to to give those options to our patients as quickly and we also want them to stay here local so that they can get their treatment local and this will help keep people here and not somewhere else.

- Yeah, the breast center is certainly one of our most advanced programs in that we've put together a very quick turnaround time so that if a result shows on a mammogram and they need that nurse navigator to walk women through that process very quickly and timely. And it's good to know that now we have, I think maybe a few years ago it was a couple months from the first like maybe scan, questionable scan to treatment plan and then they were able to reduce that down to like 12 weeks or something. And so now with this you're able to even take that time down, even take

- It quicker. And y'all and the hospital had done a great job at reducing everything and then we were the final piece of the pie to make that so much better. And so we've been doing that since about August and so we're real proud of that.

- That's awesome. And then as far as just general primary care, what does a lab typically tell physicians? I know most people get one ordered at their annual visit. What kind of things are the

- Most common? So for primary care is probably some of the most common things that we do that people would, everybody would know would be like a CBC that's gonna tell you if you're anemic or something like that. And then it's also gonna tell you things like what is your blood sugar, what is your cholesterol? Those are your wellness type visits. As we get older we start doing A1C so that we can monitor so you can't cheat so your blood sugar doesn't look good today. And then for your blood work. So the A1C is kind of like the keeper of the gate for men. We do PSAs, which of course leads to other prostate things to be done. But those are primarily your wellness visits. We also support the cancer center in other ways. We are doing a large number of bone marrows and we're very proud that we can do those bone marrows for patients to help them out. CT helps us by doing the CT guided. So we're a partnership with the, with radiology. So lab is kind of in a silo, but we do get out there and you really touch a lot of patients. We do, we every patient, we also almost every patient, we also monitor treatments. So like you have a drug level where you wanna make sure that your drug levels are good. Coag is a big thing that we do. One of the big things that has exploded for laboratory, and I didn't even include those in the 2.5 million numbers, is the point of care testing that we do in the physician practices. That's where they dip, stick your urine and they can tell you immediately, are you pregnant, are you not pregnant? Do you, does it look like you have a UTI? So we oversee that whole program too. And so we have about a hundred instruments I think out there right now. And

- I was gonna say like just in the hospital here at our main lab, what kind of testing? I know there's all kinds of equipment back there. I mean it's like a whole contraption. We have the tube system where people can send labs and it goes from patient floors to your area. But what kind of, for people, 'cause most people don't get to see that. So just give us an insight. Tell us a little bit about what's operating back there.

- Oh it's, it's fun. So the first thing that happens is we have to identify our patients appropriately. So we go to the bedside and that's our phlebotomist, that's the vampire gets out there and they identify their patients and then we have a little mobile device that we use to do that. And then we print the labels at the bedside and when we print those labels, they have a barcode. Then we run over to the pneumatic tube and we drop it at the pneumatic tube. The longest it takes from anything to go from any pneumatic tube to us is less than two minutes. Wow. Which is pretty awesome. You can't walk that fast. That is over from the A SC building. Okay. Not the As SC, the professional building. Wow. So that's really exciting. And then it comes into an area called specimen processing. And once it hits specimen processing, they receive the labs. And once those labs are received, a lot of things go on in the background. It puts it on a line and it travels around. So that little instrument goes around, it takes caps off of the tube so that we can test them. It says, okay, what instrument can I use? This one is stat, so how quick can I get it turned around? Let me send it over here. I need to bump somebody out so that I can get this ER specimen done quicker. I'll bring the routines back in and is it calibrated, is it controlled? Is it is? Are we putting out a good result? And then it goes to a storage facility and then Doctor Kathy calls up and she says, I need to add a test on. And we say okay. And we do a couple of clicks on the computer and the robot goes and gets it and brings it back and runs it. Wow. So we don't have to do as much hands on as we used to, but we still need those educated people to make critical decisions when things don't look right so that we can question to make sure we're getting out the results. So,

- And speaking, you know, you were interested in biology in the lab, what kind of person would a career in lab, what kind of student or interest would someone have that you say, Hey you need to think about lab services?

- Oh, if you're

- Trying to, if you're trying to talk to the youth right now that may be interested in this in the future, but because it's not a well known career choice.

- That's true. But that's where a lot of shadowing comes in. High schools and middle schools can bring, and colleges can bring students through the laboratory for tours. And we also accept student shadows and any, I guess job fairs or whatever. I mean I guess there'd be student fairs or career fairs, things like that would help get the word out because I mean, even I had a laboratory in my own household and I was unaware of what the laboratory was. My mother kept it very under wraps. Right. You know, while I was coming up through school. So I didn't know basically what she was doing until I was an adult. So, and then started asking questions. So it's, it's important for us because we are so introverted and drawn in that we keep to ourselves and we're hidden away and, and we're not really out there for people to see what we do on a daily basis. So, you know, a lot of people don't know who we are and what we do.

- Do you do a lot of research?

- Research? Not so, not so much in the hospital environment, but there are r and d and I mean if you go get out into like industry and they do a lot more research and development.

- So there'd probably a lot of opportunity for that. I'm just thinking as we continue to grow our like medical education program and our partnership with Merc,

- That might be, so we do do some research. So I also oversee the reference lab department. So outta the reference lab department, we do send a lot of research specimens off to different people. I believe our cancer center does a lot of

- Research.

- The cancer center, they have a whole research team and we, we aid in getting those specimens ready and stuff for them to go. Gotcha. But we don't pick who we're researching. Right.

- Yeah. Makes

- Sense.

- Interesting. So can you talk about how these lab results that you're getting through this really cool automated process, how are they influencing the decisions that then the providers are making? So they're getting our lab results back and then what happens?

- I feel like they're very influential because if we don't have them ready in time, we are getting phone calls asking about where these results are. So I believe they're very influential in the decision making process. Of course there's the clinical side of it, you know, not just the biological or biochemical side of it. So they come together to help the clinician make the decisions for the patient. But our, our contribution is very important to their decision making process.

- So another one of our big service lines is cardiology. And we have expanded it tremendously. So the laboratory helps them determine through troponins is one of the big ones today is are they having an active heart attack? Are they not having an active heart attack? Do we need to take 'em to the cath lab right this minute? Now we're not the only thing that makes that decision. Sure. But we do play a big role in it and sometimes they do it. Anybody that's having chest pains is a screen and it's a surprise to the doctor when they get it. And those results can cause them to change the treatment of the patient immediately.

- Yeah,

- It's important

- For it it to come out as quickly as possible and to be accurate at the same time. I mean we want fast, accurate resulting like what you said. So they make their

- Decision quickly. The lives don't lie if they're done accurately. Right. That's, but a lot of the external factors, the observations that a physician's doing of a person or their symptoms can vary so dramatically. But the labs, they're kind of like that telltale of

- What it helps to verify what they're thinking if they're going down a particular path or

- There there's some treatments like diabetes or glucoses. Hmm. That somebody that's got a real low blood sugar may have some of the same symptoms as someone that has a real high blood sugar.

- Yeah.

- And so you need to make sure that you're treating,

- You need

- That patient appropriately so that you can treat them. Right. 'cause we don't wanna give 'em glucose if their glucose is high. So,

- And then on another aspect of blood is the blood donation and what that means in blood transfusions and stuff. So maybe talk a little bit one about the importance of blood donation and what it means.

- Hospital, well first of all, hospital there is no blood. We don't have a product to give to the patient. So the donation is critical when they're all voluntary, we don't, no one is I believe paid, but they are compensated in some ways. Like they might get free t-shirts or you know, gift cards, things like that. Nice little gifts they sometimes get from the blood collection facilities to help with that. But blood donation is crucial for us being able to proceed with what we do. I mean we donate our, people donate whole blood and from that we get packed red cells, we'll get plasma platelets and cryoprecipitate among other things to give people as a component therapy. We gave out about 7,000 products last year and we're holding steady at about that same rate this year. So I mean that's a lot of blood to come through the blood bank and we,

- Who's the biggest, where is the biggest utilization of blood? Is it trauma? Is it cancer? What

- Area? I would say cancer and inpatient would probably be more than emergency. It's, yeah it's, it's like it's a steadier flow coming through cancer and inpatient rehab, places like that. But you know, would, or maybe not rehab so much but you know, a little bit of emergency in there. I don't really keep hard data figures on that but yeah, I just feel like inpatient and and cancer center do utilize a lot

- And we have a partnership with lifestyle. So they, lifestyle community blood centers is the sole provider of the blood donations Yes. To SGMC Health, all of our facilities. So can you talk about that a little bit and what that partnership means? For us

- It's very important and we've been in partnership with lifestyle since 2016, so it's been nine years now and they have been critical in getting our blood here quickly. Also, they have a great reference laboratory that we utilize quite a lot. They have great medical technologists working there and get our blood and blood tests turned around very quickly. So that's very important too. I mean we have doctors waiting to give patients blood and sometimes they have multiple antibodies and difficult situation going on and they need that blood product as quickly as possible. And lifestyle really does a great job of getting that turned around as quick as they can.

- One of the great things with Life South is if I were to walk in and give blood at LifeSouth that blood, most likely 99% of the time's gonna come back to this facility. Right. The only time it might not is if there is a special need somewhere else and I have the special blood that they need, then it may, may travel somewhere else. But that's a great partnership that we get all of our blood back. I would like

- To so shout them out for their response. And we, a few years ago we had a, a traumatic situation in involving Valdosta High School when, thank goodness it wasn't a real, it was a hoax but as soon as I called them they had 160 products on a helicopter getting ready to put it in the air

- Wow.

- To bring to Valdosta. So they have been very responsive. So when we have issues, they're right there and they're, they've been very good. We've been, we've been very satisfied with them.

- So if you haven't donated blood before or you are an active donor, if you donate at lifestyle, that's just an important, important way that as a community member you can give back and you, I think it saves two to three lives per donation is what they say. And so we partner with them, we host blood drives here at the hospital, but of course they have a location that's right across from our hospital in Woodrow Wilson Drive that anybody can go don donate at any time. So we highly recommend and encourage that because that's critical for our patients and their success. And it does stay right here. So it's a good way to give back to the patients here locally in our community.

- And there is a critical need for blood donations right now across the country, but even here in South Georgia. So it is very

- Important and only a small percentage of people actually donate blood. So it is important to just raise awareness of that. And if you are able to just take that hour or less that it takes to stop by and do that, certainly you're impacting lives greater than you know, and it's a good way

- To, and a lot of the businesses in town will allow their staff to stay on the clock while they go by and give blood. Yeah. So you know, it's,

- And they allow the buses to park in their lots and we appreciate that. Right.

- Yeah. Yep. So if you're a community organization that are looking for a good way to give back, you could, I'm sure lifestyle would be happy to and be happy partner with you and bring their bus by your facility. So good plug for Don Blood drives. What, what would be a little known fact that people don't know about labs or something that the labs services

- A little known federal or Yeah, so people, I would say just about everything's a little known fed with a laboratory, but it's just that most of us are, sometimes we're, we're called introverts but sometimes we can be very fun to be around and you know, some people just don't know that about laboratories.

- I think one of the things that they don't realize is that lab staff has to get the same type of education nursing does. That's, we go through our four year program is actually a five year program because we do about 18 months of clinical. So we train at, at the arm of somebody in the state of Georgia, now a biology major or a chemistry major could, could qualify to work in the laboratory. But then we have to give them that, that clinical training before we can release them to do their own work. And I think people don't realize that we have the education 'cause they'll say, oh you're just a lab person. And that's not really true. Even our phlebotomist that goes out and draws patients, they have to go through like a six month training program and they've probably stuck dummy people are people that know know that they're in training 50, 60 times before they ever go out and start drawing patients. So I think people forget that we're educated. And I think that And

- Biology, biology, biology in particular, that's like the hardest subject there is. I feel like

- Y'all are young so y'all dunno fatal fetal. So,

- And we've talked a little bit about phlebotomist too, but what are some other roles that are within laboratory that, that people would not know because they are more behind the scenes?

- Well I mean they range, you know, all across the spectrum, you know, as far as education and experience. So we have a pathology team, we have secretaries and phlebotomists of course. And then we have our med med lab technologists and, and med lab technicians and have various education levels. But we have, we have, and of course our histology team and and cytology team.

- Tell me the difference between histology, pathology, tell me a little bit just for the, 'cause I don't, I don't know the difference. I don't remember that from school. So give us a little like high level.

- I'll let her answer that. So, so the histology pathology department is, if you go into surgery and they take something out of your body,

- Okay - It is gonna arrive in the laboratory for us to process to do something with it. Okay. It's hopefully we're saying that everything is normal. Okay. Like you had your gallbladder out, there's no cancers there. It was just that it was a bad gallbladder. So we call it the parts department and they're kind of stuck back in the back. It's kind kind of gross and it's kind of scary. But that's why they

- Call it grossing when they're,

- That's they call it grossing. Those people actually have quite a high level of education. We have pathologists and the pathologist is who actually does the diagnosis for cancer treatments. So, and they spend a lot of time with that.

- Yeah. And I've seen those departments and I've been here 13 years myself and I still didn't really understand all of that stuff. So that's very enlightening. It's, I mean you really have the whole spectrum of,

- We typically do not take any young people that are touring through that department.

- Yes, that's right. Because you have a lot of, you see things that you don't

- That they may not expect.

- Well and there's a lot of people can't handle the side of blood in general. We'll

- Take college, we'll take college level, you know, shadow people through there. But we typically do not shadow young people in that department.

- Do we have volunteers that participate with lab services?

- Yes we do. With the high school students. We do. Yes we do. And we love them.

- Yeah, I'm sure that's a really interesting one. Very interactive that they get to see. Oh,

- Scenes. Oh yeah. Get to see things. Yeah. We have double-headed microscopes, you know, so they can sit at the microscope. They can't, you know, of course they can't treat anybody

- Right.

- But they get to see what a blood cell looks like. They get to see what micro looks like. You know, I have strep throat so this is what strep throat looks like and how we diagnoses. So they get to see, you know, simple things like that.

- Yeah. They like to see the blood typing and

- Yeah,

- Absolutely. And the testing where you actually use a test tube and you could see the colors and the agglutination and things like that. They can

- Swab your hands to

- See what makes it look real science. Oh,

- Oh yeah. The little hand situation

- Now we'll swab them and let 'em see what bacteria grows on their hands. Yeah, that's a

- Good way to remind people

- To wash their hands. Wash their hands. Yes.

- Goodness. Okay. I don't wanna think about all the germs, but they're there. We learned a lot about that during COVID, right? Yes. And we learned to wash our hands. We did. And then y'all played a huge role in that as far as diagnosing and getting

- Treatment

- Options back.

- So the laboratory actually became to the forefront during COVID. We had been kind of in the background but all of a sudden we're in the front of everything. We one the superheroes. Yeah. Us man. Yeah, we were as introverts, we were a little, we we hadn't worked blush over on the bench for a while. Yeah. And so all of a sudden we're out swabbing noses and we're running tests. Yeah. We at the height actually did like 3,501 day and we probably could have done more but we were a community saver around here. Right. That's right. Absolutely. So I can still see those cars I around the building

- And I

- Probably, we never have to do that. And blocking off smoking pig.

- Yes. All the drive throughs. That was, that was wild times.

- That was wild times. And hopefully we're never there again. But we learned what we're made of. That's right. And we stepped forward and

- Well

- And I think it keeps

- Job on the innovative end too is like what else can we do? Speaking of that, her two testing, you know, what else can lab offer that can help the different areas in the hospital? I know you mentioned, you know, we're building our new women in ENS tower and our new emergency, which will feature neonatal care and trauma and labs certainly plays a role in both of those. And

- That's, the blood bank was probably going to get a lot more work. You and more specialized work when that opens up. Neonatology, they utilize a lot of blood products that are specialized blood products.

- 'cause 'cause of the distance, one of the things that they've done is they've already been working on putting some blood products in the ER so that it is very easy for them to grab, grab and go. And so we've been experiencing that and Kathy's worked with Emily's team on that. And now that we're gonna be farther, we may have to expand that service. So it's a possibility. It's a possibility. You know, we're there to support the service lines and you know, we never know what they'll be. Yeah. We

- Step up. But whenever step counts in the er, you have to be able grab what you need. That's right. You know, help to save

- Someone's life.

- So, - And with that'll come, you know, higher trauma and that's better for the whole community. Quick response. You want to be able to stay with your loved ones and not everybody can travel, so.

- Absolutely.

- Absolutely.

- Well we thank you for joining us today. Thank y'all. Is there anything, well we do have one final question. One final question.

- Our very fun one. What is your favorite meal to eat here in the cafeteria or the allspice?

- I like the brisket. That's

- Oh.

- Or the spare ribs.

- Yeah. I am a hot banana pudding kind of girl. I love that. It reminds me of my mother and my grandmother. So yeah,

- Those are good choices. Good answers. All right. Well you heard it here folks. Some lab team and you'll never see them 'cause they're always behind the scenes. But just know that they're there and they're working diligently for you. And then again, if you can go donate blood, please do so. That's a great way to give back to our community and our patients. So with that, we appreciate y'all. Thank you. Thank y'all for everything you do.