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tishthedish posted: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. I'm an MLS too, I graduated in 2009. I also work evening shift but here all shifts other than day shift has everyone as generalists and we pretty much work each department by ourselves. I've probably only read about 1000 gram stains in the year and a half I've been doing this, but I'm only in micro once or twice a week. What CLS program did you go to? I went to Scott & White, everyone else on my shift went to Texas State.
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Feb 26, 2011 22:36
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Solkanar512 posted:
I used to have a roommate who would buy raw milk from somewhere. She would always insist that I try it and get all uppity when I wouldn't. At least twice a month for a year. I guess when people don't have to take medical microbiology or parasitology they don't worry about stuff like undulent fever. Also its Listeria monocytogenes right? We used use it in lab in college until the professor decided it might give women abortions and we stopped. I always liked the umbrella shape in the broth cultures.
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Feb 27, 2011 04:24
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tishthedish posted:I went to MD Anderson's program. 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. Theres always that unfortunate downside to 2nd shift, they want us to do relatively more work than someone on dayshift would do but with far less people. When they sign up to work our shift for overtime dayshift for the most part can't handle our workload so we have to do theirs in addition to ours. But it beats waking up at 5 in the morning.
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Mar 3, 2011 04:16
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Did my prereqs at Texas A&M, and I heard about the CLS program in my microbiology class.
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tishthedish posted: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. Thats what they told us it would be at the interview. I mostly turned them down because I really didn't want to live in Houston. We used to not have a supervisor and it was awesome, now we do again. Fortunately hes only on my shift for 2 hours. Unfortunately all the new people still ask me questions all the time because I've been on this shift sort of the longest. I only graduated in 2009. 
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Mar 6, 2011 04:28
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ol moon in the sky posted:I guess I'll ask this here because it seems like the most appropriate place. I'm graduating in May with a BS in Biochemistry and have been putting out applications all over the place and a got a call yesterday from a local hospital to interview for a Medical Lab Scientist position. I didn't even know poo poo about this job when I applied but reading up on it I apparently need to be accredited and stuff, so how would all that work if I somehow managed to get this job? What's the interview likely going to be like? It all sounds really interesting/good but I have absolutely no clue what I am getting into or even how I managed to stumble into this. Honestly wondering if this is all some big mistake and they meant to call some other guy. I think some states require certification, but not many. The rest is by hospital, sometimes you get paid like a dollar an hour more if you're certified. I don't believe you're eligbile to sit for the certification exam unless you've completed the year long clinical internship though. But you can still do the job, all MLS jobs require on the job training because every lab uses different analyzers and has their own SOPs. Usually though people who don't have an MLS degree work in either microbiology or molecular biology. If they want you to be a generalist, you're probably not going to get the job if they require certification. So based on your degree and I'm just guessing, they want you to work in the molecular lab. If so, you're qualified so go for it. Edit: states that require their own state certification are California and Flordia. There are others but Texas doesn't have its own so I just have the national certification. Merou fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Apr 11, 2011 |
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Apr 11, 2011 06:34
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stab stabby posted:Quoting this post from a few pages back because I'm in the exact same boat. I'm graduating with a degree in microbiology in June and have ~ 2 years of mol bio lab experience. Somehow, I'm completely invisible to potential employers. Hospitals or reference labs. The 2 areas they don't require a certification for employment (usually) is in micro or molecular (almost definitely molecular). Depending on where you live you'll make around 35-60k a year starting. Just google hospitals in whatever area you wanna work at and check what lab positions they have available.
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May 12, 2011 03:18
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tishthedish posted: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. 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. Have you gotten to the point where you can tell if a stool has C diff or not before you run it?
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Oct 3, 2011 18:30
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tishthedish posted:I think everyone would quit if my lab manager sat in the middle of our lab. Everyone is just so uneasy around her. I don't even WORK in micro and I can tell if someone doesn't have butt problems. The only micro shift we have is day, evening at night are all generalist. So we do everything but read plates and QC work. I still see the poops and they've ordered stuff like O&P and cultures and FWBCs and its obvious all these are going to be negative man, its a solid goddamn turd. I know some places do it for all inpatients, but I don't think we do. In any case, I just got an interview for a micro job at a larger hospital so my days as a generalist may finally be at a close. I know some people are into doing everything but its a serious pain in the rear end. Its a lot harder to know everything about every discipline than you'd think, especially when they put you in charge 6 months after you graduate.
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Oct 5, 2011 19:34
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