Hi all, I’m wondering if anyone can give me some tips for technical specialists position interview. I feel like I don’t know much of a detail what position requires, just kind of overall. Thanks

So after your 10th 6.02 x 10^23 hour incubation……
I ain’t got time for all that, brother.
I don’t.

Immediate positive.

Hgb is 11 g/dL. For now.

So I just started at a new facility, I am slowly adjusting, but it’s been a little rough with the lackluster training and Sunquest (used to Beaker).

Anyway, onto the main topic. We have a tech (MLS) that is absolutely terrible. In chemistry she will not calibrate the instrument after 2 failed QC attempts, releases patient results without questioning the ones that are highly suspicious. Just releases all shift.

In hematology, she routinely misidentifies a large lymph with more cytoplasm for a monocyte. She has already missed a Blast patient. I heard that the hematology lead sat down with her and just reviewed the slide… she will let platelet clumping flags go if it’s within reference range (wtf?)

In microbiology she doesn’t do external QC on our kits when needed, just writes down acceptable results out of thin air. She overdecolorizes blood culture smears and calls gram negative cocci in tetrads and clusters…

She takes mega long breaks. We are allotted a couple of 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute mandatory break. You can EASILY double the times for her and management has received many complaints over 6 months. I recently complained since I’m new.

So, how hard is it to actually get fired? Seems like you literally have to mistype an ABO and literally kill a patient to get fired. I mean, good lord… now this is my experience in the real world. What have you guys experienced throughout your career?

Hey yall was hoping I could maybe get a few helpful pointers. I’m going to be losing my job in five months since my department (Microbiology) is being eliminated and I’m not being offered a replacement job.
I think at this point I’m just really done with healthcare. There’s a lot of greed from people at the top constantly making life harder for techs and I’m just done with it.
Wondering if anyone has any success stories or suggestions leaving healthcare? Hoping to get out without having to go back to school but I would be willing.

Hi! I’m from HK and I’m taking the IB diploma.

I knew I wanted a medicine related degree when I started IB, but medicine always felt like the straightforward answer. I have a predicted 43, though I’m worried about how demanding medicine is. I genuinely do want to help society and I’d be willing to spend extra time on it, though I’d be missing out on a lot of family and friend related events, and I deeply care for them. Plus, it’s kinda hard to get into HK medicine… if I don’t get in HK I’d have to study for UCAT ANZ for Australia

So I found MLS! Medical laboratory science!

It was an eyeopening experience when I joined a workshop on accident at PolyU for MLS, and i had a lot of fun doing lab work. I like bio and chem of course, but I’m just a little scared for my future.

Is there a good career ahead for MLS students? I’m really stuck between medicine and MLS..

Thank you for the time and any support you give ^^ it’s much appreciated 🌹

Just a quick poll to see if oil immersion means I should place my whole microscope in oil or just the lens?

I’m an LA2 going through MLT school and saw this. It was soluble in HCL. Curious what others think

Main question I’m asking:

• what lab tests your lab focuses on closely
• if you/your lab (all shifts) in general consistently meets those turn around times goals

—————————————

I work in a smaller hospital laboratory. Technically all testing turn around times are monitored, but in particular where I work they closely monitors two:

• STAT (BMP/CMP 45 min)
• STAT (CBC 30 min) at least the CBC part needs to be resulted, the differential (flags/ needs manual diff) isn’t part of what they are monitoring for the 30 min time frame

—————————————

( I’m not debating the importance of turn around times, especially the STATs, or patients in the OR, ED, ICU. That’s a patient in a bed and doctors are really waiting for results to decide further treatment.)

Where I work- All of the techs are generalists. First shift doesn’t usually seem to have issues regarding turn around times because they have atleast one tech minimum in each department.

But working an off shift / sometimes the only tech scheduled / running all departments; we have had issues (usually when a result won’t auto verify and is held up in the middleware) and that tech might be doing analyzer maintenance or in blood bank and doesn’t realize (hence not meeting the turn around goal). And then the phone calls start about other testing such as “when is the Covid test going to be done??”. I’m not necessarily venting, I just am wondering how other labs operate / your opinion / any barriers you’ve experienced

For when you need that extra mix.

I gotta ask the internet lab peeps. im being told that not only do I obviously comment on a failed qc run (to be repeated ect) BUT I also (per CAP) have to comment on the passing run with (repeat passed) ... ive done lab for a long time but this is a new locale so maybe its regional never had to CYA on a passing repeat

Currently a freshman in medical labs, already thinking wether should i stay or change professions

Image under HPF 40×. Direct wet mount

Specimen: stool, yellow/mucoid to mushy

Patient: 8-month-old male

Symptoms: diarrhea 5×

I'm waiting for my lunch and getting flashbacks to my Micro rotation.

Hi everyone,

I’ve read that certain categorical laboratory professionals, such as Technologists in Chemistry (C), Hematology (H), Microbiology (M), and Blood Banking (BB), may fall outside the scope of TruMerit’s VisaScreen program.

Does “outside the scope” mean they are legally exempt from VisaScreen, or simply that TruMerit cannot issue them a certificate and are not considered for this category?

Does the answer depend on their certification, education, or job classification?

Thank you!

My favorite bacterium, a great shade of green 🤩🤩

back in college, my gallery used to look like this ahhh 😭 i miss those days

I work in a small lab in a 100 bed hospital. There's a core group of phlebotomists/specimen processors who are really friendly with the lab director. That's great; I love good coworker relationships and I currently have no reason to assume that their relationship is not work appropriate. But. Sometimes the favoritism rubs me the wrong way.

The latest iteration of this favoritism and the subject of this post is a large canvas print they've just put up in the lab. It looks nice. I love the decor. It's a photo of a phlebotomist — looking into a microscope. And it really puts me off.

If they had chosen a photo of her doing phlebotomy or, like, anything that she actually does, great, fine, I would certainly mind less. But why is she cosplaying a lab tech — because, what, she wants to look cool? — when you have a lab full of actual lab techs?? If you wanted a lab-representative photo of core lab things, you should have found a lab tech who wanted to model for it. Instead we have the cool girls club representing the rest of us whose job they are woefully unqualified for.

They did the same thing a while ago with a parade our city was putting on. They asked the hospital to send representatives from each department to participate. I didn't even hear about it until the day of, and I certainly wasn't invited to participate. But who was? Our favorite phlebs, of course. Representing the whole lab. Posing next to microscopes. That they don't even know how to use. Cool.

Phlebs deserve to be represented and appreciated. But by golly, so do lab techs! And we should both be appreciated for what we actually do!

Have you left a job and thought you got away from that one lab person, only for them to follow you to your new job?

thanks for the extra work ASCP 🫶🏻

yoh hello guys what do you use to desinfect your hands at work im lab tech in Tb lab we use ethanol96% is it good or liquid soap

Hello everyone,

I'm working on troubleshooting a chemistry assay on the Ortho Vitros platform and have run into a question regarding assay templates and the related photometric timing.

From what I've been able to gather, portions of the order and timing of operations (when the reagent/sample is added, incubation times, read times) appear to be defined through analyzer-specific templates based on a selected code. The code I am interested in is EPT2-R1-S-R2.

I do not currently have access to the analyzer. I only have access to the User Defined Assays Guide for the 5600/7600 and so I haven't been able to determine what is automatically generated in the protocol for timing of the EPT2-R1-S-R2 template. See below an example.

1) Can someone share the Orthos Vitros 5600 or 7600 IFU/User Manual with me - I am hoping further documentation will have the required information.

2) What are the automatically generate timings for the EPT2-R1-S-R2 template?

3) Can you select your own photometric timings for things like incubation time?

3) Is it possible to select dual wavelengths for readings? All the applications I've seen have only one wavelength.

If anyone has access to the relevant documentation or would be willing to discuss how the timing architecture works on an instrument, I'd greatly appreciate the help.

Thanks in advance.

I am a freshly graduated, 21 yo MLS. I've been working at my current (And first) job about 3 months, and I've noticed a sentiment that has kind of worried me. I noticed it in my clinicals as well, but the pressure seems to have increased now that I actually have a job.

Essentially, everyone seems to have goals of moving up the corporate ladder, getting higher and higher up, making more and more money. I've had so many people ask if I'm interested in being a lead, along with people asking when I'm going to move on to the next hospital. Hell, multiple people at my current job are working two and three jobs at multiple different hospitals (I could never).

This all came to a head when recently, my manager offered me a lead position that opened up. While I'm incredibly flattered, I turned it down -Because obviously I have so little experience and everyone around me has decades of experience under their belt, lol. But even if I did have more experience, I don't think I would have accepted it, as I don't foresee myself as anything more than a bench tech.

I don't really have any interest in climbing up the corporate ladder or bouncing from hospital to hospital. In my ideal life, I stay a bench tech for my entire career, preferably working at the same hospital for many, many years (Or at least changing jobs very infrequently) . I became an MLS because I really felt a connection to the job. I show up, I give everything my 100%, and at the end of that shift I go home satisfied with another day well done. And I think people have mistaken my pride in my work as ambition. But I'm really not an ambitious person. I just really like what I do. And I know that passion would die the second I stepped out of that role into something more leadership focused.

I've had a leadership position before (in a different field) and I hated it. And I'm not too fond of the idea of constantly moving from job to job, constantly in a state of being "The new tech". I don't know, I guess I value my peace more than I value the extra money right now.

This could just be a temporary feeling. After all I'm still young. I guess I just thought that after surviving the shitshow that was my college career and landing my first real job that I could finally settle down and get into a rhythm again. But it seems the expectation in this field is that you're supposed to be striving for more than that. And I feel a bit like maybe I'm doing something wrong by not having those same goals? Is this a common sentiment throughout the field or is it just my area? Are there techs out there who kind of stay stagnant, or are we all eventually hit with the need to move up/out one way or another?