January is national laugh like a smug Frenchman month.

There is a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that makes me wish so hard this was how life is in the lab that it isn't funny it isn't funny.
Here's a link to the scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

As you can see, Arthur and his English K-nig-its, are trying to garner some help from some Frenchman in a castle and all they get is a fierce bout of taunting. To understand what I'm talking about, you have to understand what it's like working in the laboratory in the basement of a hospital. We are literally cooped up in a room with noisy machines fielding angry phone calls all day from Doctors and Nurses that have absolutely no idea what or how it is that we produce the results that they need on a daily basis. The general lack of understanding and sheer sheer stupidity of requests and demands naturally generates a sense of shit rolling downhill with us being at the very bottom. Of course this generates a distinct amount of disdain for the rest of the hospital since no one ever calls us to tell us how much of a good job we are doing. Some requests or demands are frequently because of the offending caller forgetting to even send us a specimen on a patiient in question that it's so not hard to be smug. In my case, the temptation is so great that I just can't control my self at times. My colleagues are normal Clinical Laboratory Scientists and have far more patience than I do because I am a certified "Evil" Clinical Laboratory Scientist who happens to be a bit above average on the intelligence scale (at least I think so and that's all that counts in this game) who really does not enjoy being pestered by Doctors and Nurses with inane demands and requests. My biggest flaws are that I absolutely cannot stand being treated like I'm stupid, don't know what I am doing, or that I don't care about how long it takes for me to get the results that said Doctors and Nurses need. Anytime one of the aforementioned circumstances take place, I immediately turn into a smug Frenchman and have to exert every force of my formidable will to keep from taunting the hell out of the offending party. Most of the time I can hold my tongue and the laboratory staff is used to me spouting off numerous, colorful taunts and slanders immediately upon getting off the phone with said offending party. Two other parts of being a certified "Evil" Clinical Laboratory Scientist are that you have to be an extreme "Knowitall" and very, very bold when provoked. Bold enough to tell Doctors where to stick it when they are being more obnoxious and abusive than normal. This occurred not once, but twice in the last 2 weeks and of course it lands me in our Laboratory Director's office explaining why she has gotten two angry emails from physicians who don't enjoy being told they are being unreasonalbe from some "Knowitall" puke who works in a cave at the bottom of the hospital and has nothing better to do than refuse to bow down to whatever inanae and unreasonalbe request he or she has made.

Naturally all of these are character flaws that I have and I do my best to keep them in check but sometimes things just get the better of me. It's hard working in a place where people who have no idea how processes work in a lab call down to berate you because they don't know you are doing your best to provide them with the quickest and most accurate results you possibly can. I work very hard to be very good at what I do, I hate it when people question my abilities or expediency when I take so much pride in my job. The work that we do in laboratory as professionals is both exceptional and very important. We have to bring our "A" game everyday because physicians make medical decisions on the information that we provide on what's going on with every patient. I think that we should be allowed to be as smug as humaly possible and that we should also be able to taunt whining, and complaining offenders as harshly as our imaginations will allow. We are frequently at odds from the nursese from our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This is where all of the very premature, less than one pound, tiny infants go after a premature delivery. These are very fragile little human beings and naturally they require a fair amount of bloodwork to be done to ensure their survival. Problems arise when nurses send down suboptimal specimens that we are unable to give results on because they are not accurate due to the quality of the specimen they provided. Everytime I have to call the NICU to tell them they have to recollect a specimen, I have to brace myself for the inevitable ass chewing and insinuations that I hate babies and secretly love it when nurses have to torture, delicate and sick infants. Starting next week, things are going to change greatly next week when the NICU gets a new point of care instrument that will allow them to perform certain testing in the NICU itself instead of sending it to the lab proper. At this point the nurses our going to enter our world of hurt, they are going to experience for themselves what happens when you run a suboptimal specimen and the analyzer won't report out results. I am literally going to be doing back flips when they call down to ask for help because their specimens suck. The ammount of smug is going to be so thick, you will be able to cut it with a knife and enjoy it's sweet, sweet nectar of divine righteousness. There will be absolutely no doubt that I am a certified "Evil" Clinical Laboratory Scientist and I'm sure I will be in our Laboratory Director explaining away my numerous, colorful escapades next week. This is why I have made January national "Laugh Like A Smug Frenchman" month in honor of the hard working men and women who slave in laboratories everyday to help sick people and save lives. We will have our revenge next week and it's going to be so grand that I bet I'm going to pronounce it as one of the best weeks of my entire life.

"I fart in your general direction you silly, so called physician!"