Pippa and Maddie’s Lab Tour
On Wednesday, July 10th, seven-year-old Pippa visited the RUH lab with her big sister Maddie and their mum Chloe. Pippa brought along a special guest, her tortoise teddy named Tiny, who made a cameo in many of the tour photos!
Pippa and Maddie were excited to receive their own lanyards and lab coats, planning to show them off at school after the tour. The adventure began with Matthew, who demonstrated how blood samples are booked in. The girls took turns labelling the samples, feeling like real scientists for the day.
In Biochemistry, Gabriel showed Pippa how to place her SST sample on the track, and they watched it move to the centrifuge and then to the analyser. Pippa then delivered her EDTA sample to Haematology, where Lexi helped her place it in a rack to get her FBC result. Lexi explained the analyser's workings, and together they examined the results. Pippa was excited to see how her neutrophil count is checked for her chemotherapy treatments.
Next, Pippa and Maddie made their own blood films and succeeded on their first try—a task that usually requires a lot of practice! They used CellaVision to look at the blood film and identified different blood cells. Pippa even got pictures of her blood cells to show her classmates.
Emma in Biochemistry guided the girls through fun experiments. They squirted milk, vinegar, and a sugary solution onto dipsticks to observe colour changes and learned the importance of accurate measuring using pipettes. Tiny the teddy even helped with some experiments!
The tour concluded in Transfusion. Pippa has received blood and platelets before, so the staff showed her where these are stored and explained the importance of keeping them at different temperatures. Pippa held a bag of platelets and learned why it needs to be constantly moving to prevent clumping.
After the tour, Chloe shared that both girls lounged on the sofa in their lab coats, wearing their lanyards and reading the magazine from their goody-bag.
Chloe's feedback about the tour was heartwarming:
“The girls loved feeling special. Life isn't easy when you go through chemo, especially as a child. They loved seeing the machines and following the process. They really enjoyed the little chemistry experiments. The next day, the girls took their goody bags to school to share with their classes and tell them about the tour.”
Chloe added:
“Thank you for giving two little girls living quite a challenging life a really positive experience in hospital!”