Anyone here work as a medical lab assistant/tech?

[Karoht]

Two part question, first part concerns gaming (sort of) second part concerns future career.

I like science. I scored well on chem and bio.
I'm pretty good at math. I'm fascinated by biology, physiology. I love the show House, I used to really like ER for the first few seasons.

Anyway, my career councilor recommended I take a 7 week course to get my certification (here in calgary alberta canada) and become a medical lab assistant. I was wondering if anyone on this board works in this field and could tell me a bit more about it (you don't see things like incident photos or dead bodies or anything right?) so I can figure out if I am a good fit for this career.

Also, gaming wise. What can you tell just by looking at a vial of blood? No microscope, just a vial of blood, what can you tell just from it's appearance? Relevant for a game I'm running, no vampires are not involved.

Thoughts?

[polity4life]

Depending on its viscosity, you can tell if it has been either preserved or not. If it hasn't, you can tell if it's relatively fresh or old. Color may tell you if the creature it came from is a vertebrate or not and oxygen levels: darker colors would lead one to believe it was drawn directly from a vein while brighter may allude to the blood coming from a wound.

[GallóglachMaxim]

I worked in a research lab for a little while, what you end up encountering will depend of the focus of your lab. Mine was doing liver disease research, lot of work with rats. The team down the hall was investigating genetic triggers for mental illness (they accidentally made OCD mice).
Most important thing I could say about the job is that it's repetitive, you usually need a high volume of information which means doing the same things over and over again (and then copying the data, studying and processing it). If you don't mind that sort of thing then you can probably find somewhere to work that suits you.

[Brother Oni]

I work in a related field (pharmaceutics) and assuming things are similar to this country, at the lab assistant grade, your primary duties will be mostly low level stuff at first, making reagents and agar plates, disposing of waste materials, lab housekeeping, etc.

You'll probably won't get anything interesting like GallóglachMaxim did and it's unlikely you'll do any data interpretation (data entry is something else).
Once you've got some experience and have shown some aptitude, depending on your lab's workload, you may get 'promoted' up to running routine analysis, ie the same batch of tests on new samples day in, day out.

It all depends on what company/department you end up working for - R&D and development in general tends to be a lot more interesting than QC, which is the science equivalent of a factory line worker (a trained chimp could do a QC job).

As an aside, scoring well at science will be useful for getting the job, but it probably won't be relevant at all for your daily duties. I did a biochemistry degree and I barely use any of it in my daily work.

[Serpentine]

Anyway, my career councilor recommended I take a 7 week course to get my certification (here in calgary alberta canada) and become a medical lab assistant. I was wondering if anyone on this board works in this field and could tell me a bit more about it (you don't see things like incident photos or dead bodies or anything right?) so I can figure out if I am a good fit for this career.

I did most of* a TAFE course in Laboratory Skills which would've given me qualifications to be a laboratory assistant, and part of it was work experience in a pathology lab.
I'm sure it all depends on where you work. Where I went, it got heaps of medical specimens. Poo, wee, blood, bits of flesh and tumours... I worked with everything except the first. I expect you'd have to get work with a very specialised sort of lab to get work with dead bodies and stuff, and I wouldn't be surprised if those are actually very competitive. So no, at least at first I wouldn't expect you to have to deal with anything like that.

Also, gaming wise. What can you tell just by looking at a vial of blood? No microscope, just a vial of blood, what can you tell just from it's appearance? Relevant for a game I'm running, no vampires are not involved.

Any equipment at all? The aforementioned lab I worked at had various tests involving centrifuges and these things where you'd stick a thin glass tube into a sealed test tube of blood and leave it for a set amount of time, and the distance the blood travelled up the tube told you... something, involving viscosity I believe.
With nothing... I guess all you have is thickness, viscosity, maybe texture if you played with it, and colour. I don't know what, exactly, that would tell you, though.

*The very last assignment was a massive screw up (didn't help that I gave my work to a friend to help him with his, and he copied it word for word, and cuz he was older than me it was assumed I copied from him ), and I was too over the whole thing to redo the assignment so I didn't get the certificate, which was really dumb

[Juggling Goth]

(they accidentally made OCD mice).

Sounds like the set-up to the world's crappiest horror film.

[Brother Oni]

Sounds like the set-up to the world's crappiest horror film.

Depends on the setup.

Pinky and the Brain would possibly be well on the way to something highly entertaining.

The Rats in the Walls however as the potential to be absolutely terrifying or absolutely dire.

[Karoht]

...anyway...

I had a chance to better look into it. The course is 21 weeks, not 7. Not a deal-breaker. I asked around to a few other people who work in medical labs and such. Yes, some of them are part of clinics, so they do take samples (re: blood, urine, etc) and do things with them. The big one here to note is that they actually do the drawing of the blood themselves.

I am a bit touchy around that, but I think I can handle it.

[Force]

As a nursing student, I'll let you in on a little secret: most people who start a medical-ish course aren't that enthusiastic about body fluids. However, it's your instructor's job to expose you to that part of the job and help you accept it. After a year in nursing school, I can spend twenty minutes cleaning a pressure ulcer (a ginormous hole in someone's skin that leaks pus/blood/serous fluid and stinks to high heaven) then walk out of the room and eat my lunch with every evidence of enjoyment. So long as body fluids just make you go "ick" instead of make you completely flip, you'll do fine.

[Karoht]

As a nursing student, I'll let you in on a little secret: most people who start a medical-ish course aren't that enthusiastic about body fluids. However, it's your instructor's job to expose you to that part of the job and help you accept it. After a year in nursing school, I can spend twenty minutes cleaning a pressure ulcer (a ginormous hole in someone's skin that leaks pus/blood/serous fluid and stinks to high heaven) then walk out of the room and eat my lunch with every evidence of enjoyment. So long as body fluids just make you go "ick" instead of make you completely flip, you'll do fine.

That is actually a really good description.

I'd say I fall more into the ick category personally. Though drawing blood will be the test for me. I really disenjoy causing harm to others. I'm sure I can trick my brain into seeing it as helping, but I know that sticking a needle into someone causes them pain.

Thanks so much everyone. I think I can get over these issues, and the career is starting to sound more and more viable for me.

[bebosteveo]

Blood vial: Depending on how long its been sitting there you might also be able to get a very rough (as in normal or not) platelet count as they clump together and sink to the bottom. This is mostly my speculation, I'm not sure if blood will separate on its own like it does in a centrifuge.

Yeah, what you do at your job depends on what lab you work for and what sort of training/certification you get. You might just be the guy in back mixing up polymers or you could be freezing mice, slicing off parts, and throwing them into a new CT scanner. But you don't get to do the latter stuff without a fair amount of training, so it won't just sneak up on you one day.

If I can ask: if you're good at and interested in chemistry/biology/physiology, why not go for the fully biochemist degree?

[Force]

That is actually a really good description.

I'd say I fall more into the ick category personally. Though drawing blood will be the test for me. I really disenjoy causing harm to others. I'm sure I can trick my brain into seeing it as helping, but I know that sticking a needle into someone causes them pain.

Thanks so much everyone. I think I can get over these issues, and the career is starting to sound more and more viable for me.

The trick with doing injections and blood draws is to be quick and deft. You're causing pain primarily when you move that needle, so you want to minimize the time you spend moving it if you can. Practice, practice, practice in skills lab on dummies/hot dogs/what not until you have that motion down pat. The first time I gave an injection, I moved way too slow and the old woman I was giving insulin to politely told me to "jam it in there, darnit!" The second time, I used the proper "quick, darting motion" and she congratulated me on my advancement.

That said, is there any reason why you plan to stop at lab tech?

[Lady Moreta]

The trick with doing injections and blood draws is to be quick and deft. You're causing pain primarily when you move that needle, so you want to minimize the time you spend moving it if you can. Practice, practice, practice in skills lab on dummies/hot dogs/what not until you have that motion down pat.

And once you have the motion down pat, don't stop practicing. I once had a doctor try to insert one of those plastic tube thingies they use if you're going to get multiple injections, so they can just put them all through that instead of stabbing you lots - in the back of my hand. Said doctor clearly hadn't done so in a while and she hit the bone in the back of my hand and then she wiggled it trying to find the vein. If that wasn't bad enough, she then withdrew the needle and then proceeded to do it all over again! In the end, she gave up and went for my elbow instead (all they were doing was drawing blood, but she wanted to insert the plastic tube thingie just in case they had to do other stuff).

The entire back of my hand swelled up and had a massive black and blue bruise on it. I had to elevate my hand until it went away it hurt that badly. I told a friend of mine (who was a med student) about it and told her to make sure she kept practicing that skill! Of course, what I should have done was tell the doctor to go get a nurse to do it properly!

[Serpentine]

I went to the doctor to have my Implanon implant replaced the other day. The doctor was telling me about how they've made a new version of the device that has a thing in place to stop it from going in too deep and automatically withdraws the needle without taking the implant back out with it and stuff. He kept going on about how he couldn't understand how that could possibly happen, that it's already really easy to do and how it really shouldn't be possible for anyone competent to mess it up.
Turns out my old implant is in too deep for him to find, so at some point I'm gonna have to go under an ultrasound scan to find it to get it surgically removed
(wasn't him who put the old one in - though that would've been pretty delicious if it was)
I got stitches from the search (well... a stitch)

[Don Julio Anejo]

Guys, just so you know, a "medical lab assistant" is the guy who takes and runs fluid samples like blood and urine. May or may not eventually graduate to biopsies if the lab is attached to a hospital (rather than a separate lab that runs tests for GPs). What many of you are talking are full-on research labs and yes, these do require a full chemistry/biochemistry degree (or at the very least, for you to be a co-op student, aka an intern, working on such a degree).

Vial of blood: iron content, based on its redness, oxygen saturation based on the shade of red vs. blue (will tell you if it's drawn from a vein or artery or is merely capillary bleeding). That's pretty much it. Viscosity (short of extreme high/low values) doesn't carry any medical connotations other than hematocrit, which is generally dependent on species or adaptations to high altitude.

[Brother Oni]

Vial of blood: iron content, based on its redness, oxygen saturation based on the shade of red vs. blue (will tell you if it's drawn from a vein or artery or is merely capillary bleeding). That's pretty much it. Viscosity (short of extreme high/low values) doesn't carry any medical connotations other than hematocrit, which is generally dependent on species or adaptations to high altitude.

Wouldn't viscosity and/or lumps in the blood also indicate level of coagulation and a rough idea as to how long the blood has been out of the body?

Since we're also assuming human blood, but the OP hasn't specified, wouldn't the actual colour also indicate the metal ion in the blood (eg blue for copper/haemocynanin, red for iron/haemoglobin) for different species?

[Karoht]

The trick with doing injections and blood draws is to be quick and deft. You're causing pain primarily when you move that needle, so you want to minimize the time you spend moving it if you can. Practice, practice, practice in skills lab on dummies/hot dogs/what not until you have that motion down pat. The first time I gave an injection, I moved way too slow and the old woman I was giving insulin to politely told me to "jam it in there, darnit!" The second time, I used the proper "quick, darting motion" and she congratulated me on my advancement.

That said, is there any reason why you plan to stop at lab tech?

I like the idea of mixing stuff in a lab mostly. I have plenty fine people skills, but I want to minimize my interaction with the public as much as I can for a while. Given the expense and time investment of further education beyond that, any further advancement will have to come once I make that first step. Maybe further advancement will occur, maybe it won't, I'm not getting my hopes up just yet. I might really enjoy lab work. I might want to expand on my skills and become a registered nurse. Who knows.


Also, blood vial scenario.
'Detective' questions a medical lab about a patient. Due to privacy laws, he can't find out more, but he does happen to spot a vial of blood that has the patient's last name on it, with a hastily made label, not the official label on all the rest of the vials. He sees blood of a certain description (to be determined once I match a condition with a visual description) and that is about all he has to go on. Testing it would reveal the condition of course, but the detective doesn't have that option.

Detective is a stand in for the party in this description.
Time line is modern day.

[Brother Oni]

Also, blood vial scenario.
'Detective' questions a medical lab about a patient. Due to privacy laws, he can't find out more, but he does happen to spot a vial of blood that has the patient's last name on it, with a hastily made label, not the official label on all the rest of the vials. He sees blood of a certain description (to be determined once I match a condition with a visual description) and that is about all he has to go on. Testing it would reveal the condition of course, but the detective doesn't have that option.

Detective is a stand in for the party in this description.
Time line is modern day.

In that case, virtually nothing, unless the vial's label has something helpful written on it.
The blood will be dark as it's a sample drawn from a vein, but that's about all you can tell from glancing at a vial.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from inventing a condition that makes the blood a different colour, or crawl about like a primordial ooze inside the vial.

[bebosteveo]

Also, blood vial scenario.
'Detective' questions a medical lab about a patient. Due to privacy laws, he can't find out more, but he does happen to spot a vial of blood that has the patient's last name on it, with a hastily made label, not the official label on all the rest of the vials. He sees blood of a certain description (to be determined once I match a condition with a visual description) and that is about all he has to go on. Testing it would reveal the condition of course, but the detective doesn't have that option.

Related Wikipedia picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blut-EDTA.jpg

Right side is "freshly" drawn blood, left side is a vial that has been sitting still for some time (probably a couple hours). The dark fluid is red blood cells while the light fluid is plasma. change the colors or proportions and you've got a disease. I recommend either anemia, lymphocytopenia, or polycythemia since they would be easiest to notice visually.

[Karoht]

Related Wikipedia picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blut-EDTA.jpg

Right side is "freshly" drawn blood, left side is a vial that has been sitting still for some time (probably a couple hours). The dark fluid is red blood cells while the light fluid is plasma. change the colors or proportions and you've got a disease. I recommend either anemia, lymphocytopenia, or polycythemia since they would be easiest to notice visually.

Woooooo, perfect!

[Brother Oni]

You do realise that the left sample has anti-coagulant (EDTA as stated in the picture file name) while the right is freshly drawn (no anti-coagulant)?

In my experience, blood left on the side doesn't separate out without processing (centrifugation normally to spin down the rbcs) or additives (to prevent coagulation).

[bebosteveo]

Correct, but from my understanding it is pretty much standard practice to add an anticoagulant to most blood samples. This keeps it fluid and prevents it from clotting the moment it touches an artificial surface like a test tube. There might be some applications where you want to test the natural viscosity and clotting ability, but if the vial is in storage, you're going to want to be able to get the blood back out after some time.

[Don Julio Anejo]

You do know that EDTA is an extremely strong chelation agent, right? It complexes pretty much any random metal ions such as Ca2+ and Fe3+, which means it deactivates and/or denatures enzymes contained in the blood, destroys cadherin-based cell adhesion (okay, not an issue in blood per se, but still), and under some conditions (such as the addition of a detergent like SDS) can even remove iron from myoglobin and haemoglobin hemes.

So yeah, anything with EDTA in it can not be used for qualitative comparison, only for very specific tests and only if you know how exactly it's going to affect your variable of interest.

[Giggling Ghast]

Well, I've got a degree in homeopathic medicine ...

[Brother Oni]

Correct, but from my understanding it is pretty much standard practice to add an anticoagulant to most blood samples. This keeps it fluid and prevents it from clotting the moment it touches an artificial surface like a test tube.

This is true, but that picture only shows what a blood+EDTA mixture looks like.
Further to Don Julio Anejo's comments, instead of EDTA, they could be using a sodium citrate solution to stop anti-cogalulation (this is what they use for bloor donor samples).

However I have no idea what a blood+sodium citrate mixture looks like after being kept still at ambient temperatures for a few hours (blood packs are constantly rocked and refrigerated almost immediately after donation).

[bebosteveo]

You do know that EDTA is an extremely strong chelation agent, right?

I new it bound free ca++ ions to stop platelet action but didn't know it was quite so indiscriminate and destructive. I tend to forget some of the important details like that.

[Cartermartin]

I am working as a medical helper from last few years. If you are looking to take this field as your career then go for it. It have everything you just need to.

[Maelstrom]

welCOME to the world of TOMORROW!

IE, Necromancy, Thread

[friendlydude]

Two part question, first part concerns gaming (sort of) second part concerns future career.

I like science. I scored well on chem and bio.
I'm pretty good at math. I'm fascinated by biology, physiology. I love the show House, I used to really like ER for the first few seasons.

Anyway, my career councilor recommended I take a 7 week course to get my certification (here in calgary alberta canada) and become a medical lab assistant. I was wondering if anyone on this board works in this field and could tell me a bit more about it (you don't see things like incident photos or dead bodies or anything right?) so I can figure out if I am a good fit for this career.

Also, gaming wise. What can you tell just by looking at a vial of blood? No microscope, just a vial of blood, what can you tell just from it's appearance? Relevant for a game I'm running, no vampires are not involved.

Thoughts?

I know that this is a couple years old, but I just wanted to respond by saying yes, and that I encourage people to get certified in this field. It's a field experiencing a shortage of qualified applicants right now so if you get certified you are very likely to find a job within the first year out of finishing the necessary coursework required.

I have worked with both tech and lab jobs, and I prefer the tech. My job was working with LIS system interfaces. I went through some systems I liked and some I didn't. (Polytech LIS was the best by far and not enough people know about it).

All in all, the work is enjoyable if you don't mind blood. I recommend it.

[Heliomance]

...I thought it was you who got a job a while back driving a body wagon. Who was that then?