That about sums it up . . .

My cats are smarter than these students. What in the world were they thinking? We are not being told the entire story. In this day and age???? Who in the world doesn't know about needle or other invasive procedures requiring perfect sterility? I tend to wonder if it isn't some sort of hate crime perpetrated by someone with HIV, or prejudiced against Native Americans or some other sick viewpoint.

I hope all of these students are held back one year in their studies.

"Students from UNM's physician assistant program ..."

The title of the article is a bit misleading.

Wow. That's a screwup.

On the positive side, the chance of infection by cross contamination is very low. This is because the lancets don't stab very deeply and the fingertip bleeds.

The students and the individual who failed to properly instruct the students on how to use the lancet device should be kicked out of the medical school and fired, respectively. No medical student, with half a brain, should use any device that draws blood, without first ensuring that he or she knows how to properly use it and the potential dangers involved if not used properly. If they failed to receive the proper instruction, they should have asked someone in authority to be sure they were using the device the right way. There can be no apology that covers this fiasco because if just one person who was tested was HIV positive and the lancet used to check that person's blood sugar was used on someone else, and that person becomes HIV positive, how the hell does the university apologize for giving this person a terminal illness? Offer to pay for all their meds till they die? What a load of crap this is. No excuse is good enough here. We are talking about medical students and no matter how the school wants to continue to say how much good the students thought they were doing, well hell, if the surgeon cuts off the wrong leg, do we forgive him because he was trying to help and just got confused?

yeppi , the teachers were messed up , sooooo ,, are they still practicing?? HHHMM?

The editor and/or author is an f-ing idiot. These were not medical students. They were physician assistant students, according to the text of the article.

The future of health care in this country is that PAs (physician assistants) and NPs (nurse practitioners), so-called mid-level providers, will intrude even further into areas previously occupied by physicians. Just be aware that the post-college training for NPs is 2 years, PAs is 26 months, and for physicians is minimum 7 years. The Bell curve for their knowledge base, wisdom, and clinical experience is shifted far to the left of that of us docs.

NU Wildcat fan:

You are giving "us docs" a bad name by continuously bashing others in your posts. All this does is show your own insecurity and unprofessionalism. I hope you do not go around calling people "f-ing idiot"s in your daily practice. This was a highly unfortunate incident that should not have happened at the hands of any level of provider. These students should have been properly trained and supervised for the event.

Agree, they were not properly trained, but it seems the students did not question. No need to call anyone a "f------ idiot". The AMA endorses PA schools, and I'm sure both NP and PA students are as serious and capable of learning as "real" med students. Frankly, in my career, I've seen all of them learn and grow. Some of them do make you wonder, though. Some of the "wonder" cases include all three groups. They, like the rest of us, can all be f-idiots at times. IMO, the people we should question are the instructors!

Full-fledged doctors are in charge of this program, and I'd really like to know more about the supervision that was supposed to be going on because it didn't catch what the students were doing. The students are at fault for not seeking training on unfamiliar equipment (which shouldn't even have been used in the first place), but the doctor supervising them should have stopped them, instructed them better, something!

Yeah. But there is a bigger problem. Only about 10% of people with HIV know it. In any randomly chosen group of people, some will have HIV. Similar figures are true for Hepatitis B. So if everyone gets tested and there are people who come up positive, it is likely not from this.

Canker Sores -- not Cancer Soars

Hmm you do realize that canker sores are not contagious. You cannot catch them; they are not cause by a virus or bacteria. (Unless you have HSV1 and don't know it. The incubation period for HSV1 is longer than 24 hours) However, canker sores are often caused by injury to the mucous membrane of the mouth. A bite-wing would cause injury. Just saying...........

Poppie: Hmm you have erroneusly corrected Tina. The general public does use the term canker sores (medically spelled chancre sores) for any painful ulcer inside the mouth. Although some oral ulcerations are from cheek-bites or eating citrus, others are from viruses, and the classic medical chancre sore is caused by syphilis. The ulcers Tina describes are caused by a non-STD virus in the herpes family. The illness is called Herpes Stomatitis or Aphthous Stomatitis. It is highly contagious, found often in small children and is, as she says, VERY painful. Many of the littlest kids drool and need IV's due to painful swallowing -- even of their own spit!

Meanwhile Tina's story is a first-hand account of contracting an illness from a piece of non-sterile dental equipment. Let it serve as intended: a pertinent experience-based cautionary tale.

The title of the article is misleading. They were studying to be physician's assistants (PAs), not (MDs).

wrong Sandra.....the title is not misleading because that is the way the main stream liberal media writes their articles, aka, the way they want it to read not the way it's suppose to read and besides these students are studying to be wanna be md's or md flunky's, take your pick

I agree! Why would you use that type of lancet!?!?

Jkatze, I agree with you 100%! As both a Certified Phlebotomist and Certified Medical Laboratory Assistant, I draw blood on people all day long for a living in a rural hospital lab.The spring loaded capped lancets are the only ones I will use for a finger stick on adults or a heel stick on infants. My facility has gotten rid of all except the spring loaded retractable lancets. Use of any other type in a medical facility is a violation of Joint Commission rules as well as OSHA. I wonder why these students were even being allowed to use those lancets. I know the old type are still sold in pharmacies for use by diabetics using glucometers, but teaching facilities should be following Joint Commission and OSHA guidelines I think. Either way this terrible mess has to be laid back squarely on the teaching staff more than the students. They should have caught this from the beginning and been properly supervising the students! Maybe their central supply people got cheap and tried to cut corners. I've seen it happen plenty of times in other facilities and the patients pay price in more ways than one.

commentator, THANKS! These posts are driving me crazy!

Geez, Oh Man, people just don't READ any more, and jump to all sorts of conclusions without knowing the facts ....

Hey, PA's, Doctors, it doesn't matter. Anyone should know you change needles. You have to be a complete idiot not to know that. I wouldn't even want one of them taking my blood pressure if they're that stupid.

I believe that Commentator and Sandra completely miss the point of this story. How sad and stupid. Maybe if they were the ones "stuck" they would come to their senses !

Yeah, the article doesn't make it clear at first that these are PA students. However, PAs work under doctors and are supposed to be supervised and, I assume, taught as students by doctors. So doctors who were supposed to be in charge were apparently asleep at the helm during this whole thing. Even just a lowly nursing student such as myself would never dream of using the same lancet or needle on multiple people!

I note that the article doesn't describe what kind of glucometer was used, I guess because they don't want to give that make/model bad publicity. It must be a kind that is supposed to be used by one patient in their home, not the kind used in hospitals that have one lancet per little plastic applicator.

I would just like to add if you read what I said carefully I actually stated that what kind of student doesn't make any difference as to what happened - implying of course that such a terrible error should not be allowed to occur. I am sure that none of the people who were possibly exposed give a flying leap about what kind of student may have exposed them to any number of diseases which can cause a multitude of health problems some of which lead to death. I also believe that no amount of compensation will make up for the amount of stress, fear, uncertainty, doubt, and worry they will have to suffer while getting repeatedly tested and awaiting results. However, I felt it necessary to comment on the glaring reporting error. Just for your information PA students are often taught and trained by a wide variety of professionals including PA's, PhD's, Physicians, Nurses, etc. and often are not directly supervised by a Physician during their training. It should go without saying that what happened is a terrible tragedy, it should never happen, and we can all only hope that every person will only have to suffer with the testing, doubt, and uncertainty and not any of the diseases they were potentially exposed to in this situation. If you decide that somehow in skimming my blurb that I was being calloused and stupid and missing some greater point then so be it.

I assumed PA's had to be at least an LPN, when they start their training to be a PA.

I may be wrong!!

Pat - I don't think so. I think you can go right into PA training without any other degree, license, or experience.

No Pat, all that is required is at least a Bachelor of Science degree in a allied field such as biology, chemistry, nursing (RN), or medical technology (laboratory sciences).

From your post above, yes, it was a terrible mistake. However, the key is they're "students and they're studying," and, yes, they're going to make mistakes. Unfortunately, this one was a doozie.

Sandra might call them mentally disadvantaged, eh? Wouldn't trust them to pick up my garbage.

Then why the f--- are they allowed to stick people like you and me, without proper training ? ? ? ? ? And, who is the moron here ? Guess one of them must be your kid !

Calling people morons because they don't have the title of the person who made a MEDICAL error correct? Does not matter if they were doctors, nurses, CRNA, CNS, PA, PT, OT, AA, etc., these were mistakes. Secondly, a physician assistant MUST have physician oversight, they are not independent practitioners like MD's or NP's, so these were medical mistakes. The physician's license is on the line even though they were PA students.

It doesn't matter what type of medical students these people are.......a group of cub scouts knows enough to know that you don't stick something into someone's body and then stick it into someone else. This is BASIC knowledge.

These students and possibly some of their instructors need to check out careers in retail.

Nurses don't come from medical school. Nurses and nursing students had nothing to do with this!

I don't think what type of medical student these people are is the issue. Be they an un-certified school nurse/office secretary or the Mayo Clinic's Doctor of the Year......unless you just crawled out from under a rock or something, you know without getting any training.....you do not poke someone with a medical tool and then poke someone else with it.

The problem is that the kind of lancets they were using can be re-cocked. Unfortunately, this allows you to reuse a used needle and not realize it if you don't know that you have to TURN the device to get a fresh needle. After I've thought about it more, they probably did know they needed to use a fresh needle and thought they were until they later realized that you have to turn it. That's why they should have been using the kind of glucometer that works with single-use lancets, no turning required, no chance that you would not realize you are not using a fresh needle. The kind they were using sort of looks like a thick pen and has 6 lancets inside and must be turned to get to a fresh one. They didn't turn it.

The kind they used is meant to be for a patient testing his/her own blood glucose at home. ONLY. Apparently the students bought these glucometers themselves and no one at the school told them how to use them or that they shouldn't be used on multiple patients.

****crickets chirping****

Kristen.....lmaoooooooooo...i was wondering who would be the first one to make a racial issue out of this story

If you go to the web page for their local news, you can see a press conference explaining how it happened. I think it's possible that it was a definite mistake and not intended to hurt anyone. It's the way the lancets are made that can cause the error in the uninitiated. Now there was still a lack of supervision going on and the students didn't make sure that they knew how to use the equipment. But I doubt they did this on purpose to hurt a certain ethnic group. Not trying to excuse them though.

Kimbie, I am sure you are correct, but Kristen obviously has an axe to grind that has nothing to do with this article!

yes, even a business major knows better....without enrollment in First Aid 101.

Turns out the students bought these devices themselves and no one at the school told them that they weren't meant for multiple-patient use.

Yes I agree. Years ago it was blankets with smallpox germs given to them to wipe them out. Now it's dirty needles and other non sterile medical and dental equipment. Try doing that to African-Americans and see a summer of violence and riots. But it's only Native-Americans so we're safe. There's not very many of them left to worry about, and they don't have the political clout like the A-A's do.

Kristen.....by the year 2050 the only clout in the USA will be the wet back party...no dems....no repubs.....to tea....just the wet back party

Maybe they think AIDS has been cured.

They aren't medical students or physician assistant students or nurse students.....they are IDIOTS.

Wow, angry much? I know plenty of PAs that can out diagnose many physicians.

And lancets are not hollow bore, which might help a little. I hope no one turns out to have gotten infected.