MCGC Laboratory
My first official day mentoring, which was almost two weeks ago, consisted of me reading a binder that probably weighed as much as I do on safety in the lab. That was pretty boring, but at least it’s done and out of the way. On my second day, I got to sit in on an interview for someone applying to work in the lab. I found it beneficial for me to see what an interview for this kind of job would look like without having the pressure of being interviewed, as all I did was observe. Since then, I have been learning how to prepare and stain a peripheral blood smear for examination and to do a white blood cell (WBC) differential. I prepared the blood smear by creating a wedge smear, in which a drop of blood is placed on the surface of one slide and the edge of another slide is used to smear the blood drop. Next, I stained the blood smears three different ways. The first was a neat stain, or a manual stain, where I dipped the slides in three different solutions and rinsed them off before allowing them to dry. The second was by using a QuickSlide Plus II automated slide stainer, and the third was by using a Sysmex analyzer to stain the slides for me. When I finished preparing the blood smears, I did a manual differential on each of them, which essentially means using a microscope to find and classify one hundred white blood cells from the blood smear. I learned how to identify five types of cells found in a normal WBC differential, including neutrophils (segmented and bands), lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils. I also learned what a normal WBC differential would look like, as well as what would not be normal for a WBC differential. After doing differentials manually, I got to see how a CellaVision analyzer can be used to do a differential by taking pictures of each WBC that it finds and sorting them into categories based on what type of cell it thinks it is. The pictures are displayed on a computer monitor, so unlike a microscope, multiple people can be looking at the same cells at the same time. This was helpful for me as I could try to sort the cells myself and then receive feedback on how to better identify each type of WBC. I’ve only been in the lab for two weeks, but I’m really enjoying what I’m learning, and I’m eager to learn about the other areas of the lab and to have this kind of experience before I even graduate high school.
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Exciting news! This semester, I am mentoring in the lab at Mount Carmel’s new Grove City location with their Director of Laboratory Operations, Melissa Rumohr. The hospital is still under construction, so right now it is only open as an emergency department. The lab is brand new, and they are in the process of getting everything set up for when they start taking patients this spring. I have only mentored two days so far, and it is already very different from my experience last semester. When I was at the preschool, I was mostly interacting with the students, and I have worked with children before when volunteering. This semester, everyone I am working with is older than me, and I don’t already have experience being in a lab. Everything is new to me, and I often don’t understand what the people in the lab are talking about, but I hope that by the end of this semester I will at least have some idea of what they are saying. When I first met my mentor, she said that I might be able to run some tests of my own. They would be on fake samples, of course, but I am excited to be able to use some of the equipment in the lab. This is something I never would have been able to do if it hadn’t been for the Career Mentorship Program. Since the career field I am interested in is specific and unique, without this opportunity it would be hard for me to gain this kind of first hand experience that I am looking for in order to decide if this is really a path I want to follow. Overall, I am looking forward to everything about this new semester. Even though I enjoyed my time at the preschool, I am excited to be able to jump into something I am really interested in. Also, despite the fact that it took an entire semester to find this placement for me, which was a bit frustrating at times, I can now say that it was definitely worth the wait. |
AuthorA high school senior exploring the field of medical laboratory science. Archives
April 2019
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