OSH

OSH (outside hospital) lab:

Intern: This is Dr. Intern, calling from Non-descript University. I'd like to check the status of a culture that was drawn at your facility before the patient was transferred here.

OSH: sure. What's a culture?

Intern (dumb-founded): Um, a sample of the fluid, like blood or CSF, to see if there is infection.

OSH: okay. We have this sample from Wednesday. I can fax you the report.

Intern: That would be good, but could you give me verbal report about the culture?

OSH: not really - I can't really understand the report.

Intern (again, dumbfounded): I guess you'll have to fax it then. Does it say anthing about susceptibilities?

OSH: what does that mean?

Intern (no longer optimistic about medicine at all): does it say which antibiotics we can use to treat the infection.

OSH: Wow! We can test for that? Why don't we do that on every sample, that way we would know exactly what to treat them with?

Intern (losing all hope): we do that. Just fax me the report.

OSH: okay. Have a nice day!