Hi everyone! I'm Raimey Benson and I'm a senior in West Liberty's Medical
Laboratory Science program and I'm going to show you what it's like to be in my
major for a day
Now we're going to head back to my blood bank station
So in Blood Bank we are
working with blood products for patients so if the patient comes in and needs a
transfusion they can get blood products from here and we do all the typing and
screening and making sure that the products are safe for transfusion
what I'm doing right now is I'm working on some QC. These are all of my reagents this
is how we do blood typing looking for antibodies and
antigens that might be in the patient's blood. Right now I'm working on QC which is
done every morning to make sure that all of our agents are working correctly and
then we can detect anything that might cause a problem. so the medical
laboratory science program at West Liberty is set up in a two and two
instructional and so the first two years you're doing just your gen Ed's so you
get all of your general studies in those first two years and then the
prerequisites for your medical laboratory science program so that would
be things like Anatomy your general biology and your senior year the fall
semester you go to clinicals which is when you are strictly in the hospital
for all 16 weeks of the semester and then the spring semester senior year is
review for your boards which happen after graduation.
I'm doing my clinical
work at OVMC. I have done my hematology and blood banking rotations here
Every senior in the medical laboratory science program is required to go through the
clinical rotations we generally do them at a OVMC, Wheeling Hospital , Weirton Medical
Center, East Ohio Regional Hospital and several other medical institutions.
I am looking to make sure that my reagents are reacting well with my control cells
and I'm just making sure that the
antibody in my QC kit is being picked up by my reagent and so when I'm actually
testing patients that I can be confident that if there is actually an antigen
present that my reagent will pick it up. In my blood
banking I've been doing a lot of practicing sometimes my supervisor will
give me some things that are a little unexpected that are a little challenging
for me to figure out so she'll give me you know some antibody that's a little
bit harder to find just for practicing reasons and it's really great to have
all the experiences actually seeing the work flow and being able to work
side-by-side with people who have been working for years and getting to hear
about their experiences and any tips and tricks they have for someone just starting out.
So now I'm going to take my screening cells out
and I'm going to put them to centrifuge. They've been
incubating for fifteen minutes and that is just to strengthen their
reaction and it's making sure that these cards that we use for our testing are
working and to make sure that our reagents are working. So rotations you are able to follow a round
a tech that it's actually working and you're able to see how they do things
and the kind of specimens that they receive and how they process them and
then towards the end of your rotation though you'll have the tech. You're still
with the tech but they will allow you to do some of the testing under supervision
and that way you get actual on-the-job experience
We have four plus reactions so our screens work So during blood banking you're either
really busy or you're really not and so during those few down times I'm able to
study for my boards. I'm able to review the procedures and the actual science
behind what I'm doing which is really awesome it's just a reminder of the
structures of the red blood cells and really the importance of the science and
the reactions that I'm looking at and what they can mean for the patient and
just the information that they provide to the doctors.
Now I'm going to grab some blood to do some typing
so I'm just going to grab a tube here and make sure that I can see the blood I'm using
so first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to label my tubes and I have to
make a 3% cell suspension and a .08% cell suspension first
And now I'm just going to grab some packed red blood cells
I am planning on taking my boards once I gradually and then I'm
planning to move back home to Columbus but I am right now I'm considering going
on to school to be a pathology assistant. A pathology assistant is someone who
helps the pathologist determine the prep specimens and they help them out with
that diagnosis. The job outlook for medical laboratory science is incredible
there's so many job opportunities so many hospitals are really hurting for
MLS's and need a lot of help in the lab. it's a really secure job lots of people
are needed and you can go on to do things like you know pathology assistant
if you want and so it's a really good degree to have that you can grow a lot with that too
They are negative for that as well so for their forward their forward
typing is an "o-negative' so now I'm just gonna check my
reversals cells to make sure that they reverse type as an "o-negative" as well
so that's positive reaction that one solid agglutinate so they do have an
anti A and there's zero
Same thing for the B
larger gluten and again so that's a positive so they also have an anti B
so they are reverse typing as an O-negative as well.
I hope this gave you a good look of what it's like to be in the medical laboratory science program
at West Liberty. For more information visit our website