Back to the Lab!

To celebrate Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, Off the Bench hosts Galina, Justin, and Sophia speak to Pat Jones, recently retired medical laboratory professional, and reflect on written responses from additional new retirees Janice Conway-Klassesen, Deb Rodahl, and Charlie Weinzierl. They take a journey through the lab of yesteryears, as well as what the lab might look like in the future. All four sages give advice to all future and upcoming laboratorians included in the description below:

Janice Conway-Klassesen

Keep your eyes open for opportunities. Many laboratory practitioners are down on the profession due to the lack of recognition. But I believe that if you do not feel valued where you are, it is up to you to change that. You can work the bench for your whole career and feel very valued and fulfilled if you are in the right place. Or you can seize those little opportunities that present themselves and choose a different professional path. Like any other degree, you can use your laboratory education in a variety of different careers. Make your own career.

Pat Jones

1. Keep in mind that there is a person represented by the test you are performing. This provides motivation for consistent, high-quality work.
2. Keep learning. Scientific knowledge is always expanding, and learning new things keeps you interested and interesting. Being current facilitates pertinent conversations within the broader medical community.
3. Think outside the box. Laboratory medicine gives you great skills that are transferable to quality assurance, pharmaceuticals, biotech, management, etc.

Deb Rodahl

I always loved the laboratory because it represented a combination of science and technology. I think for the upcoming generations the same will be true, but as with anything, you get out of your career what you put into it.

• Be active in a professional organization and understand that is how you will continue to learn and grow – you never know where this path will take you!
• Don’t isolate yourself in the laboratory, you need to interact with all the other healthcare team members.
• Remember your team is the entire health care team – you are all working to improve the lives of the patients we serve.
• Speak up and provide input – don’t wait for others to do it for you.
• Look for things to improve.
• Don’t be the person who wants things to “stay the same”; the world is continually changing/evolving and we need keep up or initiate the change.

Charlie Weinzierl

Hospital labs comprised half of my career. Reference laboratories another quarter. And the final quarter was in a Fortune 500 company that manufacturers and sells products to clinical laboratories. If you want to eventually move from the bench into supervision or management, you may want to volunteer for special projects as they come along. Better yet, make it known to your superiors that you welcome a challenge. Identifying problems in your workplace is helpful to enlightened leaders, and they love it when you have carefully thought of some possible avenues where solutions may be found.