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Another lab rat checking in! I work the evening shift in the Texas Medical Center in the microbiology lab. I got my BS in August 2010 and am a certified Medical Laboratory Scientist. It's not a terribly well known field because we aren't really visible to the patient, but I found out about it in a microbiology class and decided it was the best career for me. There's a major shortage (that's getting....shorter) of MLS' because of the vast increase of old people, so it was a good choice for job security. Anyways, I am the ~Gram Stain Queen~ at my lab. I've read 1500 since October. Also, I never thought I would be so comfortable shelling stool into small containers to be tested for C. dificile. Rectal swabs for VRE aren't something I thought were so prevalent, but after urines, it's what we got most of. Any other MLS'? (or, as they're mostly known, MT's?)
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Feb 25, 2011 08:43
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Merou posted:
I went to MD Anderson's program.  Did my prereqs at Texas A&M, and I heard about the CLS program in my microbiology class.oracle6781 posted:Just a general question out there for all you lab rats, do you guys like your jobs? I'm an undergrad who's been working working in a neglected disease lab in my school for 3 years, and while I enjoy the research, it seems all my coworkers can't wait to leave because of all the stress. Is that just the way it goes in an academedia or does it vary on where you work? There's stress, but I think there's stress and dumbass bosses (I have a dumbass boss) everywhere. The hardest part I deal with is the shortage of workers. Two weeks after I started, one of the technologists had some back issues and has been out since. My boss was trying to add another person to the evening shift because she was planning to give the evening shift more responsibilities. Well, she gave us more responsibilities......with the same amount of people. I just went and talked to her again about the fact that I CAN NOT do everything myself on the days my co-technologist is off. It's flat out ridiculous what they expect. Buuuuuuut the job security is nice; I had a job 1.5 months before I graduated. I also started at $22.50 an hour (that includes my shift diff, though) and have already gotten a market adjustment. I am also getting a merit raise in a month. In December, I'll get a $5-7000 increase in salary because I'll be moving up in my PDM. Plus, oh God, I love not doing homework. Being able to clock in and clock out is awesome.
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Feb 28, 2011 05:52
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Merou posted:I got accepted to MD Anderson but I also got accepted to Scott & White so I went there since I really didn't want to live in Houston. Plus it only cost 500 dollars since the hospital pays for the program instead of the 13k MD Anderson wanted in tuition. Living in Temple for a year kind of sucked but probably less so than living in Houston. Yeah, I'm totally all right with the workload (as long as I'm compensated accordingly for what I do) because I love sleeping in everyday and working when almost no one is around. Evening shift people are generally more relaxed. Plus, at my lab, there are no supervisors in the evening! There's no one breathing down our backs, and the other technologist I work with has been there for 25 years so he can answer any type of question I have as a newb. Where are you getting the 13k number? My tuition was $1500 a semester, and that included health insurance. It was practically a steal. Houston is definitely not where I want to live forever, but I know that having MD Anderson on my resume is priceless.
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Mar 3, 2011 07:40
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Bellams posted:Can I get some feedback from people working as ~official~ Medical Laboratory Technologists? They are accredited up here in Canada, not sure about the states. I am an MLS! Just got my degree in August 2010 and started working a week later.  I wrote up something on the first page of this thread, but feel free to ask any questions. I work in the microbiology part of the lab, if it makes a difference.
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May 30, 2011 07:40
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My pens kept getting stolen so I BOUGHT MY OWN and labelled them with my name and they still get stolen. 
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Jun 8, 2011 06:16
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No one here is a med tech! I have no one to share stool stories with
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Aug 23, 2011 07:08
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ONE TIME a few months ago, a nurse sent a stool sample (which was in a grey tub- about the size of a butter tub) wrapped up in latex gloves. I really hate when they do that. Anyways, I took the glove wrapped specimen out of the ziplock bag so that I could confirm that the label on the grey tub matched the label on the requisition. As I pushed one glove to the side, I noticed that the gloves were covering up yet another ziplock bag, which actually contained the grey tub--and the bag was full of loose stool. More cursing ensued until I discovered that the nurse had forgotten to label the grey tub! Hooray! Now I was quite excited to see how the story would end. If a specimen is not labeled, we call the nurse and tell them that they can either come down to the lab and re-label the specimen, or they can recollect. In a situation like this, nurses generally choose to recollect because it's poop and not something difficult to attain, like CSF. So I called up the nurse, and after some waffling she told me she wanted to come up to the micro lab and re-label the specimen. I was shocked because I figured she must know the condition of the specimen, but I gave her the directions to our lab nonetheless. I re-affixed the gloves and set the specimen in the hood because I was not about to clean it up for her. It is very common for them to send a leaking stool specimen to us, and we always have to just grit our teeth and deal with it. About 15 minutes later, a nurse comes through the doors, asking where the stool was. Imagine my surprise when it is a male nurse instead of the female I had been speaking to! I pointed to the hood and showed him where the alcohol wipes, gauze, and gloves were while he just stood there dumbstruck. As he reaches for the gloves, he mutters "I'm going to get that nurse."
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Aug 23, 2011 19:31
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I have some stool stories, but I also have general crazy lab stuff. There's a coworker I have named Nancy who can be a real bitch. I have only been at the hospital a year now, so even though she is just one of the part-time weekenders, she thinks she can boss me around. I stood up for myself which led to a talk between me and Nancy in the lab manager's office. We basically agreed to disagree. No hugs, no handshakes. Well I just let things go for awhile until Nancy was back to her old antics. This time, instead of informing the managers, I took matters into my own hands. I took all the stool specimens from the table so I could set them up in the hood myself. We take the stool from grey tubs or sterile cups and put some into these 5mL tubes that have a twisty top that we used for C diff testing. There were quite a few stool specimens that were liquidy where I could fill the 5mL tubes up to the very very top. I would screw the cap on as hard as I could. I knew that Nancy was going to be doing the C diff testing the next day. I wasn't there to witness the magic, but the tech who worked with Nancy that day said that it was definitely worth the effort.
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Aug 24, 2011 07:23
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Gnome Shoebuilder posted:Post more stories...less about stools? Definitely start studying for the test starting at least six months before you plan to take it. If you do that, spend 30min-1 hour a day reviewing. I got the flashcards by Polansky thinking they were like the elementary school flashcards, but they are really index cards crammed with information at like 6 font. Not very helpful. What WAS extremely helpful was labce. com. It's $55 for a year subscription, and you take full length (100 questions) tests. They have a large question bank, so it's worth the price. They track your scores along the way so you can see how your doing. You can also see average scores of other people so you can compare yourself. On the actual test day, I pretty much thought I failed. The general consensus is that if you think you are failing, you are probably passing. This is because the questions get harder as you answer more correctly in a row. Thanks for the mindfuck, ASCP!  Obviously, I passed, but I needed a few drinks that night.Is it just me or do doctors really suck at microbiology? I called a doctor for a critical value notification today, and let him know that I saw gram positive cocci, gram positive rods, and gram negative rods in his patient's gram stain (retroperitoneal drainage). The doctors are supposed to "read back" the report, and he said "okay so that's gram positive, gram positive rods, gram negative rods, and.....you said.....cocci." "Well, yes, the cocci are gram positive. Also gram positive rods. And gram negative rods. Many white blood cells." When they sound that retarded, I generally repeat everything because I know they are about to turn around and order antibiotics for the patient. Nevertheless, did he really not know that gram positive is an adjective and not a noun? 
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Aug 30, 2011 07:42
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My lab manager is a total bitch; she doesn't come into the lab that much and doesn't ever try to talk to us on a non-work level. The one time she helped in the lab was "ice day" back in January where half the lab called in. (Texans can't drive in ice) People kept trying to take pictures of her on their cell phones while she was working. She made everyone she saw doing it erase the picture.
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Sep 1, 2011 06:28
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Merou posted:At least yours isn't in the lab very often, ours has her desk right in the middle of it. Since the shift I work on is all generalists and is short because they never hire anyone, on a rare occasion she'll stay and cover hematology. What that means is she continues to do her paper work while we do all of her work and ours. I think everyone would quit if my lab manager sat in the middle of our lab. Everyone is just so uneasy around her. I've seen just about every type of poo there is. The ones that really piss me off (and make me very sick to my stomach) are the hard ones. Um, if the stools are coming out like concrete, the patient does not have C diff. It would be awesome if doctors understood that. I have predicted a few, but there's so many green, completely liquid stools at my hospital. In a run of 40, there might be one or two positives, and it's usually one of the green liquid ones. Yay poop. We just got a new test in, for malaria. I sat in the one hour inservice to learn how to do it, only to hear that we get like 3 samples a year. So it's basically something I'll have to re-teach myself every time I do it.  CAP came yesterday! Everyone suddenly had to go to lunch though so the few of us techs who were left had to answer all of their questions.
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Oct 4, 2011 22:46
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I had a guy from the core lab (hematoloy/chemistry) come in and say that a CSF he had done a diff on (Wright/Giemsa stain) showed that there were many gram negative rods. He had looked up the gram stain that I read and I had reported no organisms. So I looked at the slide again, and there was still only few wbc's and no organisms. He looks at the slide and says that there's ONE gram negative rod, but that his stain must be contaminated. I hate ridiculous poo poo like that. I read 3500 direct smears last year, and there's never a slide with only one single organism. It just doesn't happen, even in CSF. Also, he was looking at a wright stain vs my gram stain, which is specifically for MICROBIOLOGY. I remade the slide, but there was still no GNRs. The other technologist looked at both slides and said he didn't see any GNRs, but said that there was a single questionable dot (which he said could be a gram positive cocci) on one of the slides. Jesus. Then he tells me that I needed to write in my report that I repeated the slide and saw nothing, and that I re-checked the original smear and saw one questionable dot. I point blank told him "no", that I didn't see anything therefore I am not reporting that. He just stared at me like I was insane. 
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Oct 29, 2011 07:29
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