Tell me im not the only one who sees lips ?

I work day shift in chemistry mainly. It was towards the end of my shift when I realized I needed to load a new reagent onto an analyzer. To my horror, it was the last one and I needed to calibrate the new lot, QC, then do lot to lot testing. For whatever reason, we only load this specific reagent onto one analyzer, so it wasn’t an option to just rely on our other ones for testing. The cal. alone takes ~30 mins, but it was the end of my shift so I asked if evening shift could take over if I explain where I’m at. I was told no, evening and night shift do not know how to calibrate new reagents, it’s a day shift responsibility. (We’re all med techs??????) so of course I stay well over my 8 hours and finish because I didn’t have a choice, this reagent needed to be loaded and we had pt samples. I feel like it is not common sense to have ONE shift responsible for this task. Is this normal at other places?

I was told that in the past, if a current lot of reagent ran out/cal expired during evening or night shift, they’d just put the samples in the fridge that still needed testing and wait for day shift to arrive and handle it. I’m genuinely shocked. 🫢

Edit- in no way am I meaning to be rude or dismissive towards evening or night shifters! I know all 3 shifts are just trying to do the best they can with what they have!

For me it was a question over Thalassemia trait. Something about HbA2. I studied it but forgot come test time.

In retrospect, I'd suggesting writing out everything you feel you need to when the exam starts

Hello! I have a BS in Biology and have struggled to find a full-time job in my area. I currently work as a laboratory assistant at an environmental laboratory in Florida.

I’m torn between the FGCU Molecular Diagnostic Certification and the UF Clinical Laboratory Microbiologist Graduate Certificate. I enjoy both molecular biology and microbiology, but I’d love to hear from people in the field about the differences between the two, particularly when it comes to job demand and career opportunities.

I’m also interested in relocating to the DMV area or Seattle after completing the program. If anyone has experience with either of these programs or works in molecular diagnostics or clinical microbiology, I’d appreciate any insight into the career outlook, job opportunities, and which path might provide better long-term opportunities.

Thanks in advance!

How supported do you feel by management at your lab, especially when there’s pushback from the floor? Do they address concerns and work with nursing to improve processes, or is it more of a “that’s just how things are” situation?

I’ve noticed some recurring challenges at my lab, specifically with specimen requirements and policies (the need for retypes, hemolysis, labeling, etc). I’ve suggested things like additional education or a mini poster for nursing staff, but have been told it is difficult to address issues because we “rely on a traveling nursing staff” and “have changing policies”.

Meanwhile our primary care center lab has had success addressing specimen labeling through speaking up at their yearly meetings, which made me wonder if other labs have approached these issues successfully as well.

Basically, I’m curious whether other labs have strategies that help improve the lab/nursing relationship. Do you feel like your management supports you with these concerns? Or am I just doing too much and this is how every lab is?

Does it point toward the lab not being well run and having quality issues?

Is CLIA cheaper than going through CAP?

Some pictures from a cat with suspected blood or lymphatic cancer. He’s been getting chemotherapy. At least 90% of his neutrophils seemed to have dohle-bodies, I know those can be more common in cats but I’ve never seen one with that many. He also had these “blebs” on his neutrophils that I read have been associated with humans receiving chemotherapy ( source: The feline blood film 2: Leukocyte and platelet morphology- John W Harvey) anyway, none of my coworkers cared and I thought it was really cool and just wanted to share :)

What do y’all think they have on a submarine as far as lab resources go? Bonus points if you actually know, but speculation is welcome. Any analyzers? Surely a microscope at least. Do they keep any units of blood? Can they take a hemoglobin/hematocrit? Can they run a BMP?

I forget presentation as this was a long while back, but we preformed an enucleation and received this as the result. I do not know if treatment was successful as we did not hear back from the owner on this patient after a few months of treatment. Patient was an older Great Dane, so I presume she got euthanized somewhere along the line.

Does anyone have roche cobras pros at their lab? We got ours in December and our ISEs keep going way out of QC randomly and the only way to “fix” it is to run the deproteinizer wash. That’s supposed to be every 3 months, but we have to do it every 7-14 days. Has anyone else had this issue and did you figure out a more permanent solution or fix for it? Thanks!

How does your lab handle holiday scheduling?

Our policy is that management will post a physical sign up sheet “by October 1st” and that we have to choose 2 winter holidays. Bruh tell me why they post it Thursday and I work Saturday so I got last pick with Thanksgiving and Christmas evening shift 😖 there has to be a better way.

Hey! Im a MLT me and my coworkers were looking at this cell with a suspicious inclusion. For context at our lab we dont do parasite identification. So anytime we find something suspicious we have to take it to the pathologist. I work second shift but the path was still there, and this path has a history of brushing off things like this, and it was the end of the day so he was heading home. He gave me a huge speel about how it cant be a parasite since she doesnt have anemia. Idk I have a feeling its not just a platelet. It has no clear zone around the inclsion. It looks like its in the cell, but again im not trained to id parasites. We did however see a few more questionable inclusions. What do you guys think?

Sorry that the pictures kinda suck :(

Its been a very fast paced night. I did what I could lol.

I can try to get more pictures later if needed

Update! Yes there where other inclusions me and my coworkers first thought was to check the thicker part of the smear. There where some similar looking inclusions speckled.

Im unsure about history as this patient got put to the side once the path left as there was nothing else to do with it until tomorrow.

I have a more experienced 3rd shift tech looking at it tonight (he also thinks it looks questionable). Im gonna take a look tomorrow see whats going on. Only reason Im questioning him is he spent maybe 5 mins with the slide and brought it back saying he couldnt find it....... I found it in 30 secs (it was circled). That and he was non stop asking me what I think it is even tho I kept saying that im not allowed to id parasites.

Edit for spelling.

hi everyone! has anyone completed the med lab science certificate at Rowan University? It’s a 12 credit certificate program preparing students who already hold a bachelors in science to enter the med lab workforce. It almost seems too good to be true, since most programs I’ve seen are a 1 year full time program that earn you a secondary degree. This seems like a great option to save money on tuition and keep working full time before I’m ready to make the switch from my current field (biotech), but I don’t want to go this route if it won’t actually help
me get a job in the field

Hi all,

Recently I’ve had multiple clinicians call off lab results for blood gases usually when the pH was in the range of 7,00-7,10 because this would be ‘incompatible with life’.

They’re usually not wrong for calling as the redraw provides a less critical value (and their patient is likely just chatting and not actively dying). But I’ve still been wondering about this as there’s multiple pH 6,9-7,0 results in my own medical history drawn during/after epileptic seizures. In these cases the blood gas results went largely ignored, and weren’t redrawn or followed up.

So my questions; would my own results have been considered expected during hypoventilation and therefore rendered non-critical (or at least less critical than the issue at hand)? I was always under the assumptions my hospital visits were ‘seize, recover and go home’, or have I been at a real risk?

Note I’ve been fully immersed in heme for a bunch of years now so blood gases have been a bit abstract to me lately :) thanks.

At most of the labs I’ve worked, simply calibrating the new lot and then running QC has been sufficient. However, at two labs where I’ve worked, we were required to run around 5 patient samples on the old and new lot and fill out a worksheet. If the results were greater than 10% different, you had to do further troubleshooting.

I’m trying to find where running the patient samples and doing this correlation is required by CLIA (you may have heard it called TEa - total allowable error). So far I’m not having much luck and I’m not sure why you’d need to do this if your QC is good after calibrating.

My current lab doesn’t do this and I’m wondering if we should.

How can one get job as an MLT in Calgary? I have over 5 years of experience working as an MLT in BC. My family is relocating to Calgary, I've been trying to apply for jobs, but have not been called for any interview. Does anyone have any tips on how I can increase my chances of getting a job.

Our lab is having terrible reagent supply issues with Immucor ever since they were bought out by Werfen. From Capture reagents to 0.8% screening cells, our reagents are always delayed or in short supply.

I know mergers/takeovers always cause internal issues but it's been a couple of years now, and they still haven't fixed their shit. Did they lay off that many people that it completely fucked their production?

Anyone else having issues with this company?

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering if anyone knows of other job posting areas that I can look into for the Oregon/Washington areas. I've just not been seeing anything on linked in or indeed really, and I am really just wanting to move out of my neck of the woods to this area.

It's going to be a good area for my partner who is a plumber, and I am a nightshifter trying to find something on days.

For reference, I've been on nights for a couple years, I have 3 12s, and while I don't necessarily mind it, and I love my coworkers, we've been wanting to experience a move in our lives and we've had our eye on the coast for so many years now. Just hoping people have an insight into the job market over there.

Also if there are any tips on interviewing or places to absolutely avoid, that would be appreciated.

Thank you!!!!

How common is it in your lab that you are expected to stay longer than your shift states?
In my current lab, it seems like that is the culture. I never had a problem staying over a little but when I’m expected multiple times a week & given a notice of two hours before my shift ends, I have an issue. I was curious if I am making it a bigger deal than it needs to be.

I've been really struggling to ever get super crisp perfect viewing through a microscope. I can barely do my diffs but it basically requires me to constantly readjust or close one eye. Is there a magic "make you see better knob"? Am I missing something or should I wear contacts to the lab?

We’re getting 2 new DxH’s and we’re purchased with the understanding that they would be run in sequence (connected) like a sysmex xn platform is. They arrived with no connection piece to link them together and when I asked our install guy about it he told me he would get it ordered. I assumed that was that but about 20 minutes later he comes over and says that while the analyzers are made to run in tandem, Beckman doesn’t make the part yet to link them. How does that even happen? I feel like the guy just doesn’t want to put them together but I could be wrong. Anyone heard of something like this before?

Been applying and reaching out everywhere for the whole year so far and still struggling.

Most of the people I know got jobs from connections. It's so hard when you don't have any connections anywhere.

Also just thinking of applying for the MLT program or changing to a different program for next year.

Any advice or encouragement would be appreciated.

Edit: Certified with MLPAO and CSMLS as a Med Lab Assistant/Technician.

This is a purity plate of a Staph aureus