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| Top l-r: Lory (PM Shift), Lina (Reception Desk), Greg (Chemistry Supv), Thampy (Microbiology), and Gloria (Chemistry Tech) Middle: Aida (PM Reception Desk) and Sayed (PM Tech) Bottom l-r: Yousuf (Microbiology), Ayesha (PM Tech), Dolores (Phlebotomist), Mila (Chemistry Tech), Delsie (Histology Supv), Napoleon (Blood Bank Supv), Melba (Hematology Supv), and Manuel (PM Tech) |
LAB LIFE: THE ASPECTS OF LAB
If there is no tech, there is no lab. If there is lab, there's the presence of a full day of staff or a skeleton crew, usually 2 techs in the graveyard shift of a small hospital. The day for a lab tech start as early as 6:00 AM. The phlebotomist take the blood test requisitions, prepare the tray with arrays of red, green, brown and purple top tubes, disposable syringes and the ubiquitous tourniquet. Departmental supervisors come at 7:00 AM or 8:00 AM and the Lab Manager is always at the lab or on-call. The bench techs or whoever is scheduled early do quality control on the instruments and check for stat orders from the floor.
The Blood Bank tech check the custom-made refrigerator for critical changes that would affect the preservation of donor blood bags. Patient going to have surgical operation, routine or risky, is checked and cross-matched for blood type - A, B, AB and O.
The Hematology-Urinalysis tech check the quality control data on the machines: Prothrombin (PT) and Partial Prothrombin Time (PTT), Differential Counts and the HemaTech. Urine is tested with dipsticks and microscopically for crystals, casts, RBCs and WBCs.
Chemistry and Special Chemistry tech perform the most blood tests as ER doctors are very demanding and must have the results immediately. Techs don't have time to go on break or to lunch especially when they are busy. Sometimes the patient's blood had not been drawn yet and the nurse or doctor was already asking for the report. With just 10-20 cc of blood sample, many tests such as blood sugar, liver enzymes, hepatitis-AIDS tests, drugs and metabolites have a turn-around-time (TAT) of within 30 minutes to an hour depending on the chemistry intruments. Chemistry section is always on the run 24/7.
The Histology or Cytology tech is busy cutting paraffin cell blocks into microns size, staining and labeling the slides for the Pathologist to read and then check for normal, benign and cancerous cells.
The Microbiology tech is sterilizing and cleaning the benches making sure there are no contamination or cross-contamination by infectious materials, checking for any positive growth from blood cultures and instrument results of bacterial identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
Published 1/28/07 ALT MSN Groups
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Dear Lab Techs:
It's good to know that lab techs are still alive and kicking. There are so many kind of lab techs one is not sure if they are still around. This website sure informs us.
Keep it going and more power!
Published 2/2/09 ALT Group Multiply
Web Page: Lab Techs
