This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: AB Positive: From YKTTW
Ellen Hayes: "... how many of us actually know their blood types right off the top of their head?" I do! I do! O Positive.
Note, though, that in medicine (and medical shows and medical scenes) when someone yells "Type and cross-match", they are checking more factors than merely the ABO and Rh factors. I forget how many there are, but imagine a dozen or so.
- I checked. Twenty-fraggin' nine according to that other wiki.
- Well, "type" is ABO and Rh type (the two big ones. ABO mismatch transfusions produce what's called a "hemolytic transfusion reaction" and are often fatal (oops!) and Rh mismatch transfusions can cause massive problems for present and future pregnancies as well as also sometimes causing the same kind of hemolytic reaction. The "screen" portion looks for antibodies to make sure the person doesn't have some wacky blood type that will cause endless nightmares. There are 30 recognized systems (ABO and Rh are systems, so there are 28 more) as well as a bunch of random ungrouped ones. Fortunately most of them don't matter a whole lot for transfusions, though the inheritance pattern does create a "fingerprint" of sort that was and is used for paternity testing.
Jefepato: I really am AB Negative. If you donate blood, the little card they send you usually lists your blood type, so knowing isn't all that strange. (Not that a hospital would ever take my word for it.)
- Not only is my blood type on my blood donor card, but it was on my dog tags. So "how many of us actually know their blood types right off the top of their head" probably gets a "Yeah, I do!" from any blood donors, plus current or ex-military, plus maybe Girl or Boy Scouts.
Lawyerdude: Me too. Actually I also ask my close friends what their blood types are, just in case. Fortunately for me my best friend is O Negative, the universal donor.
Prioris: Amusingly, with all the hoopla over rare blood types, I've never heard a fictional medical professional express concern over the immune status of the patient or the donor. In particular, I'm thinking of CMV status - cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is a mild and ubiquitous bug that stays resident in cells post-infection. Over 90% of the population carries CMV, and while it's benign in healthy people, it can be fatal in infants and the immunocompromised. As a result, CMV-negative donors are quite rare, and encouraged to donate as often as physiologically possible. Just once, I'd like to see some TV doctor chasing down a CMV-neg donor for some perilously ill premature infant instead of recycling the same old ABO/Rh trope.
Flying Sagittarius: Can someone please explain the joke in the main page? (Put it in spoilers if needed.)
Mark Z: Extreme pedantry time: Submarines don't launch ICBMs. By definition, ICBMs have to be launched from land. The ones carried by submarines are called SLBMs.
Conversation In The Main Page:
- Comparitively, in hospitals in this town (San Francisco), it takes more confirmations to transfuse a pint of cells than it would take to launch a nuclear missile from a submarine.
- This is very much NOT Truth in Television. Because most people don't know their own blood types (and some have it wrong), hospitals are required to check before giving a transfusion. Failure to do so is serious grounds for medical malpractice in the US and, if the patient dies, for criminal negligence. That makes this episode a complete Wall Banger. (Transfusion errors are usually the result of bad record keeping and not failure to test in the first place.)
- This was actually the whole point. The test was done, but the results were wrong because of another condition. The Truth in Television is that they would rely on the test instead of asking.
- In case anyone is curious, blood type is checked for the unit: when the blood is donated (by testing), whenever the blood is shipped (by records) when the hospital receives it (by testing), before it is used for a transfusion (by testing), when it leaves the blood bank (by records), and at bedside (by records and usually also by a second person). For the patient, it is checked against records when admitted, by testing (that "type and screen" thing) when ordered, by a crossmatch against the blood to be transfused, and again by records at bedside. If they don't know the person's type, they can and will transfuse O negative blood (usually safe) without testing first, but it has to be explicitly justified.
- Not to mention that the typing is actually done to confirm that the match is correct, and will be done even if they know that the blood was donated by the person they're about to give it to. (Donating a unit or two is something sometimes suggested when it's possible to predict that a patient will likely need a transfusion ahead of time, because it's impossible to get a better match without an identical twin.)
Since U- blood actually exists, and is rare enough to only appear in those of African descent, would the use of it in Good Times be an example of Showing Their Work and/or a Subverted Trope?
mikkeneko - There is at least a grain of truth in television to this, because in ideal medical conditions doctors prefer to match blood type as closely as possible. When I went to the hospital in Japan, the doctors were upset because I was AB-, which they didn't have any stores of, so they warned me that there was some danger to me if I hemorrhaged during the surgery. I questioned couldn't they give me any type of negative blood, and they allowed that they could, but that it was safer to match blood type. (Since I didn't hemorrhage it was a moot point, thankfully.)
