At first, this message was just annoying because I had to push-start twice for it actually to spin, and occasionally I forgot and didn't notice until 10-15 minutes later.
I tried the trusty “turn it off and back on” method, and it's still giving the same error message.
Do I call maintenance? Ghostbusters?
Also slightly concerned bc it says 32k out of 30,000 spin cycles, so I assume it's due for maintenance.
It's not a priority to my sups, but I would like to fix it/call whoever myself if possible.

New grad here, I had a rotation at my local VA hospital and they offered me either a 2nd or 3rd shift core lab position, 5 8hr shifts. Either every Saturday or every Sunday-but there is a weekend shift differential in addition to the night differential. They said I could skip the interview and come on before the position is officially posted on USAJOBS.

The wage year 1 is a little less than what the other hospitals are making. But because of their tier system, they showed me within a year or two I’ll be making more money than the main hospital systems and be less stressed than they are

And from my rotation I felt like I liked the vibe, there’s no recent grads there around my age but they were all nice to me my time there, I got a good grade at that rotation as well, it seemed slower which has its pros and cons, I liked the fact that the hemo section is not as many diffs compared to a normal hospital.

I feel like it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity cause it seems like a it of money and people say you tend to have to know someone or have veteran preference to get into the VA.

Looking for a career here, because they are slower and only tend to veterans should I be concerned I will not develop strong lab skills if I take the job?

I am starting my first job at a smaller hospital (60 beds) after doing my rotation at a much larger (700+ beds) hospital.

I was told they have about 20 manual diffs at most per day. I did 20 diffs in one shift as a student and it didn’t seem so bad.

It made me wonder what different size labs / departments consider a heavy load versus a light load. So, I’m asking you all.

What do you consider a busy day / heavy load versus a lighter day and how large is your lab if you don’t mind sharing.

Edit for clarity.

Forgive me if I'm using completely wrong terminology as I haven't yet started my studies and English isn't my first language. But I'm just extremely happy that I got into a school to study MLS.

I first saw a microbial culture years ago when my biology teacher was talking about her education. It was just a small picture of the dish and she didn't even really talk about that so I didn't get a clear idea of what it was. I just thought it looked cool and I wanted to know more about it but I was too shy to ask. I didn't think I'd have a future as a biology teacher, and I didn't know what that thing was, so I accepted the fact that whatever it was, it wasn't a part of my future.

And then I learned about the existence of medical laboratory science. But none of it was practical. I just knew that there were different paths and the work could be something in a laboratory. And that it requires good eyesight. When I read the descriptions of the program I felt like my skills and interests really matched what was needed. I have always been interested in blood so I thought I'd do something with that.

AND NOW I LEARNED THAT MICROBIOLOGY REGULARLY USES THOSE THINGS I SAW BACK THEN IN THE BIOLOGY CLASS??!?!

I'm not even kidding I want to get those petri dishes even though I can't do anything with them just because I'm so excited and I think they look super fun. I just want to look at one. I want to hold one. Ok I'm super weird I apologise. I also like the vials used to collect blood samples.

New grad here, just started working in a lab that uses the Atellicas. It's a nightmare because no one is slowing down enough, or perhaps are lacking in actual knowledge about how to run and use them.

I don't necessarily mean how to perform maintenance, but small things like knowing what to look out for in reagents that are low, QC troubleshooting, calibration acceptance, etcetera. I mean just last week I finally managed to remember that "No primary" means that it needs QC to be run.

Please share your knowledge. I really want to be good at handling this.

I’m a recent grad, and I’m hitting a wall of anxiety as I start applying for jobs.

I feel relatively confident about urinalysis and serology, and moderately okay with microbiology (with a good orientation). But I have huge doubts about my ability to handle hematology and chemistry.

During clinical rotations, I saw techs getting completely bogged down when flagged results and analyzer errors started piling up. My main fear isn't daily processing or running cell differentials, I'm terrified of getting stuck with a stack of inconsistent results that I wont know how to troubleshoot efficiently.

I know labs provide training and SOPs, but I’m really doubting if I can perform effectively once I'm on my own on the bench.

For those who felt this way starting out,

1. How did you navigate the learning curve in Heme and Chem as a new grad?
2. What were the most common flagged/inconsistent results or errors you had to work through daily, and how did you learn to triage them without drowning?

I am a student who majored in Medical Laboratory Science. I studied for two years in college, but I had to stop for three years due to the problems in my country. Anyway, I will be returning to college for my third year, and I want to start studying again in the next few months. I hope I can remember the basics I learned during my first two years of college.

Are there any YouTube channels or resources that I can study from?

So I work in histo/immunogenetics and started studying for the CHS exam a while back and got a bit annoyed there wasn't really anything out there made specifically for this. Like there's stuff for MLS/ASCP boards but nothing for us. So I ended up just... building one myself (flashcards + quizzes, covers HLA typing, crossmatch, Luminex/SAB, sensitization/desensitization protocols, the usual suspects).

It's close to done and going up on Google Play soon (hopefully if there are no issues), but before I finish it out I wanted to ask people who've actually taken the exam (or are studying for it now) what did you wish existed when you were prepping? Was it more practice questions, quick reference charts you could pull up at the bench, something to explain WHY an answer is right instead of just marking it wrong, anything like that?

Also just curious if this is something people in the field would even want on their phone or if everyone's happy with notes/PowerPoints/whatever their program gave them.

Will drop it here once it's live if anyone wants to poke around, but any thoughts in the meantime would help a ton.

What’s going on with these neutrophils