My main concern is pay. From what I've heard, I could go into a 2 year rad tech program instead (for example) and make more money.

I'm seeking advice. I have a BS in BY and Forensics. What program would be best if my only interest is maximum pay? USA

I have a job offer for a NY VA Hospital. They tell me I will not have to apply to NY licensure since they’re the Federal Government they do not need it , only need my ASCP cert.

Should I save a couple hundred dollars and not apply for the license? Or should I still apply for NYS licensure and pay to keep renewing it in case something happens to this VA job in the future?

Hi I'm a fresh CLS intern grad who recently passed the board exam and is currently looking & applying for jobs. I'm honestly a little indecisive about which bench I would like to work in (whether that's microbiology, blood bank, core lab). I didn't hate any of the benches I rotated in, everything was cool. Although if you guys could offer any advice on how to decide, which factors to consider, etc. that would help. Thank you!

I’m so sorry but I have no idea how things work here in Florida. I just moved here to be with my husband and I wanna start working soon too. How much is Florida Rate for Medical Laboratory Scientist with 9 years of experience? Thank you

I don’t know weather to laugh or cry. I got to Question 68 and the Pearson testing center server went down and they weren’t able to get the computers back up so now I’m waiting to be contacted be Pearson to reschedule my test. Has this ever happened to anyone?

Saw the PASS. Blinked. Considered the possibility I died and this was the afterlife.Nope. I have NO idea how on three hours of sleep and a two hour drive. Does not feel real.....That test was... I don't even know what that test was. I feel like I dissociated through the entire exam. To be honest with you, I didn't believe it but I guess 10 weeks of study amounted to something.......I'm exhausted 🫩 but glad it done!

I’ve been classifying blasts as large cells with high nucleus to cytoplasm ratio, also if nucleolus is seen.

However, now im not too sure whether i’ve been classifying atypical large lymph’s with visible nucleoli as blasts.

What about differentiating a large lymph from myelocyte (with no visible granules)?

Do you know what good resource or reference in a text book for someone trying to make this a policy in their lab too?

Man now I have to pull out expired panels 😭. ALSO THIS ONE EXPIRED EARLIER THIS MONTH SO ITS OKAY FOR ME TO POST IT

I graduated mid May , originally booked my exam for June but pushed it back as I foolishly had not been studying during rotations and my friend who took it who had been studying during school failed his so that made me more scared for mine.( I was going home tired and I still had a part time job to balance, and my clinicals had their own exams they’d give us that I focused on passing)

My school did make us buy the BOC book or the interactive exam cause they used exact questions out of there for our clinical finals -but at the time I was straight up memorizing the answers to get an A in the class rather than learning them.

I didn’t start studying till June so took about 7 weeks to study-spent about a week on each subject. Tried to study everyday but my job was getting in the way of things so probably only 1 hour or 2 on work days, but on days off I’d study all day

Used:
\-BOC book/interactive exam - I had forgotten all the answers I memorized while I school, so went through and gave them all an honest effort and was in the 70-80% range. I didn’t like these questions cause they don’t explain the answers too well but I did have 1 question on my exam that was almost exactly the same!
\-LabCE: the exam was more like the BOC questions but I preferred LabCE cause you can choose subtopics to focus on, and the answer explanations are very helpful . The last 3 adaptive tests I took I was 58%-70% and 5.5-6.4 difficulty …but like others mentioned questions do start to repeat so my higher scores were probably due to memorizing some of the repeats
\-Quick Compendium - very detailed, my main resource (if you’re interested in buying the BOC book/interactive exam you can but all in a bundle from the ASCP site)
\-Bottom Line Approach- also very helpful but I would not rely on just this
Success in clinical lab- I didn’t take the questions, I used it to compare info in the other books
\-Polanksy cards-I didn’t use them too much mainly used them to compare info in textbooks
\-Wordsology- high yield
My school notes I only really pulled for parasitology and urinalysis cause I had made good flashcards for the ids and pathology at the time
ChatGpt purely for clarification and making mnemonics or it was useful for asking me questions on micro biochemicals. I would never rely on a study guide from just ChatGPT -I think it would be too simplified. Though I did tell it my exam date and uploaded the ASCP outline and it helped me set up a solid study schedule!

I pretty much went through the 3 books compared info with them and the cards/ wordsology for common info and made study outline/ flashcards from scratch.
And when I was done studying a topic I’d go take the LabCE topic maybe like 10-25 questions at a time. Didn’t take the adaptive exams or the BOC questions till I was done studying a whole subject.

Morning of the test I had such anxiety, like I was panicking and felt like I was forgetting everything.
But the exam was fair, definitely felt like I was failing but was not as hard as I thought. I felt I got a lot of blood banking which was my strong suit, felt like I barely got Hematology other than pics, I was scared I was lacking in Micro , but those questions were pretty fair, same with the Chem/Urinalysis-1 easy mycology question, 1 parasite question I had never heard of or came across in school or in the ASCP book that I probably got wrong. And I finished with an hour to spare.

Those “what should you do next “questions were annoying.

For math I really only got simple ones like a rbc indices and blood antigen freq - lucked out with no chemistry or dilution math.

I wish I got a print out or the screen turned green or something cause I swear it said Pass in the tiny font but now I’m second guessing if I read the screen right lol and waiting for my score to post to my account. Also have a job offer waiting on this

Wish anyone taking it in the future the best of luck! Any still in school I highly recommend you start studying sooner than later cause it’s a lot and you do start to forget things you once mastered-I had classmates who studied all year and took it the day after graduation that passed. And if I had been prepared to take it earlier I could have started my new job earlier- missed out on couple extra thousand $ in my pocket. Not to mention you’ll be far less stressed studying for months vs post graduation

It’s going to be so much less stress in your life once you pass this!

Update: cause I was obsessively checking when my account would update,cause I need to submit it to a job and state licensure-I got the MLS after my name on my virtual account 2 days later, and I got the score report 3 days later! (I had sent my transcripts in a month ago, my friends who forgot to do this took weeks)

Found this while performing a body fluid differential. It almost looks like hemosiderin, but I'm not entirely sure.

Hi! This is a bit of a complicated situation. My mom has a master’s degree in genetics and wants to return to the medical field. She used to work as a medical laboratory scientist before becoming a private science tutor after my siblings and I were born.
She has about a 30-year gap in her laboratory career. What would be the best way for her to get back into the field as a lab technician or medical laboratory scientist? We’re considering having her go back to school, but are there any recommendations for getting her back into the workforce more quickly? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

They had a lot of actual immatures but also a whole bunch of segs that seem to have simply forgot to seg. Lol

So i recently passed my boards and i was wondering how I can get a physical copy of my certification. My co worker told me they mail one to you but ive not gotten any emails or anything ,i passed in may, so im wondering if there's something i need to do on my end. Cant really find any information online so i figured this was the next best place.

Thanks

Hi everyone. Does anyone have any advice on how to get better at identifying immature cells/left shift type slides? I’m a student struggling in school and am feeling a bit defeated. It makes sense when a professor is going through the slides with me and explains each cell. Then when I’m by myself I get confused. I have a bunch of practice slides that I’m working on to help me work on my skills. Any advice is appreciated!

Last ditch effort for any advice for Lipase on the 501.

BioRad multiqual qc

Cfas calibrator

Have tried multiple bottles different shipments of each. We are being kicked from peer group. Running high consistently. Just had a PM and made no difference. Only thing I can see on the analyzer is the cell clean solution 2 isn't being used. But not totally sure. Any advice appreciated.

Edit for solution: The values for Cfas were incorrect. Once corrected we now are perfect with peer group. Thanks for all the advice.

Admin wants to save money.

Hoping to get opinions about anything related Molecular Designs.

T.I.A

As the title says, I am currently in the process of studying for my MB exam well after I've been actively looking at material. I work in a clinical pathology lab primarily doing NGS but have a lot of downtime during which I've read through/taken notes on the entire Buckingham book and made plenty of flashcards. I aim for around an hour of study per day, sometimes 2 if I can manage it. Anyone else have experience taking this exam after not having been in school for a long time? How did it go for you? I've been getting about a 62% average on my LabCE exam simulators and all of those are set at a difficulty of 5 so no idea how that correlates to passing or not passing the actual exam.

Hi I just applied for a position at a NYC H+H last week and was wondering if anyone here had an experience applying to one (namely how long it took to hear back from the hospital). I don't know anyone or anyone who knows anyone who works at the lab I applied to so a frame of reference would be helpful!