️ ‘We are overlooked and essential.’ Inside U-M’s COVID testing lab
Meredith Bruckner, Community News Producer, All About Ann Arbor
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Good morning!
Did you know that the US recently marked Medical Laboratory Professionals Week? I spoke with a medical technologist in Michigan Medicine’s microbiology department, who said that COVID completely transformed their day-to-day routine.
Cheryl Kubisiak said that prior to the pandemic, she and her colleagues were conducting viral and bacterial tests for the hospital. Already no small feat, she said that nothing could have prepared them for the sudden spike in demand for COVID testing.
“We went up about 70% in our testing volume,” said Kubisiak, whose lab shifted to a 24-hour schedule to accommodate the time sensitive tests. “It’s just demanding. You just go from morning until night and then you’re just dead when you leave.”
‘We are overlooked and essential.’ Inside U-M’s COVID testing lab
Meredith Bruckner, Community News Producer, All About Ann Arbor
Published:
Updated:
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The microbiology department at Michigan Medicine s lab on North Campus. (Cheryl Kubisiak)
ANN ARBOR – Each year, the US marks Medical Laboratory Professionals Week during the last week of April to recognize the critical role lab workers play in keeping health care systems running.
Now more than ever, lab technologists around the country and world are working tirelessly to deliver results for constant COVID testing.
Medical technologist in Michigan Medicine’s microbiology department, Cheryl Kubisiak, said that COVID completely transformed their day-to-day routine.
Medical laboratory professionals work behind the scenes to fight Covid
This is Medical Laboratory Professionals Week
April 23, 2021 5:41 PM Martha Koloski
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This is Medical Laboratory Professionals Week.
These are the people processing all those Covid-19 tests, along with all the other normal testing that hospitals and clinics do.
“We just felt like we had work to do, we had to do it as quickly as possible because it was very important for people to get results within hours versus days because it totally affected your life. Whether you could go to work, whether you could take your children to child care, if you could see anybody, like go shopping. We knew there was a very time sensitive need to get test results out to people,” says Rebecca Elder a medical technologist at Mayo Clinic Health System.
Medical Laboratory Professionals Week originated in 1975 as National Medical Laboratory Week, or NMLW, under the auspices of the American Society for Medical Technology, now called the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (ASCLS). Please join us in honoring the amazing work the lab team at Dignity Health Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital does on behalf of our community.
There are approximately 300,000 clinical laboratory professionals in the United States. A clinical laboratory conducts tests on specimens in order to get information about the health of a patient pertaining to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.
Clinical laboratory includes clinical microbiology which encompasses bacteriology, virology, parasitology immunology and mycology. Clinical chemistry follows analysis of blood components, enzymology, toxicology and endocrinology. Hematology consists of the analysis of blood and body fluid cells. Clinical transfusion services provide replacement
Medical Laboratory Professionals Week recognizes the behind-the-scenes work laboratorians do to generate clinical lab results and, ultimately, guide the courses of treatment for patients throughout the military and civilian health systems.
The week, April 18-24, holds special significance this year as labs throughout the Defense Health Agency have been a key contributor to the fight against COVID-19.
Within military medicine, the laboratory community consists of officers, who serve as lab managers, technicians, who are doing the actual testing and reporting or lab work, and civilians, who do everything from sample collection to management. My mission as a lab officer, and the mission of the lab community as a whole, is to ensure timely and accurate reporting of results, said Lt. Col. Paul Nelson, chief of the Air Force Medical Service COVID Lab Team at the Air Force Medical Readiness Agency, located at DHA headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia. Our job is to take the samples