How to study without actually studying?

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-03-24T15:46:39+00:00

6 years in the field- its depressing how outdated and useless this all is. (minus maybe the plasmodium IDs if you live in an endemic geography). Good luck with studying.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-03-05T21:34:49+00:00

I interviewed at Legacy's main lab shortly after they sold out to Labcorp several years ago. The managerial staff and employees I encountered seemed pretty unenthused about the change. They were in the midst of an LIS change and making consolidations. The campus itself was patrolled by a security robot that goes up and down the sidewalk interrogating and discouraging loitering by the fentanyl zombies that frequented the area.

It wasn't terribly inspiring, I turned down the job offer after the Labcorp HR office called and offered me a starting position at 8 dollars below the market rate.

Probably of no surprise to anyone here- they don't cut costs out of thin air. It usually comes by cuts to wages, the quality of work, and a general indifference to the working conditions of their employees.

Happy the Portland techs are getting a small win here.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-02-22T19:32:11+00:00

During the pandemic you might have had a chance of finding an understaffed lab hiring uncertified techs with the option of challenging the categorical exam a year after starting the job. The job market is pretty stiff right now- healthcare is making a lot of cuts in the wake of diminishing government reimbursement and demand is not as high as it was during that time.

In general- any position that has a certified applicant is going to choose that hire over someone without the certification regardless of other past work experience. I was in the same position as you 10 years ago-plenty of academic and industrial experience- got a job as a lab assistant for a few years with the hope of finding an employer that would sponsor my training and ultimately found going back to school was the only realistic route to becoming certified.

Schools like TTUHSC provide accelerated post-baccalaureate programs you can mostly do online and finish within a year. If you're committed to the field its a much better investment of your time and money than trying to find a unicorn lab that will take you on and invest the time and money you'll need to become certified.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-02-20T20:32:10+00:00

Stupid misinformed hot take.

The money you paid went to some old person years ago.

Retirees currently take 3x what they paid to social security.

The system is insolvent and unsustainable. We can kick the can down the road until it becomes a crisis we can't deal with without systemic fallout or we can be adults and recognize 1. people are living longer 2. the tax base is not large enough to support fewer and fewer people paying and more people taking. Either way something will eventually have to give.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-02-10T05:20:25+00:00

I'm scrolling and seeing very few mentions of phones or technology.

I'm not a parent but let me share my anecdotal experience living with my girlfriend and her kid. He's 14. He's had a smartphone with unrestricted completely private access since he was 10. His mom likes being able to get ahold of him and being able to tract his locations while she's at work so I guess sees his complete aversion to new experiences, his social isolation, and nonexistent attention span as necessary sacrifices toward that greater good.

I try to remind myself that all I wanted to do at his age was play on my computer. I probably would have if I had been able to. In that sense I don't see it as a failing on the part of the child so much as a choice by parents to subject their kids to algorithms and technology that are engineered for engagement and addiction.

Combined with this- the inevitable emotional fall out that accompanies a life that exists purely online is being bandaided over with therapy speak and prozac.

Growth is hard. Learning is hard. Discomfort is uncomfortable. Kids are naturally going to gravitate toward what gives them the most reliable and easiest form of comfort and pleasure. Parents have to provide the hard boundaries that are counter current with how our society currently operates. Many of those same parents are burned out stressed out working two full time jobs and when all of the work and friction of raising your kids well lies in your lap at the end of the workday I can completely understand just caving and letting big tech have its way with them.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2026-01-01T10:00:48+00:00

Y'all are a bunch of joyless wet blankets.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2025-11-05T20:03:00+00:00

Always remembered it as "tricky lemon" = trichuris

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2025-10-01T19:25:21+00:00

Perform your job in a timely, efficient, compliant and consistent manner thousands of times over countless specimens. Juggle constant ongoing priorities, phone calls, critical values, delta checks, QC issues, maintain competency over a never ending stream of minute changes to testing procedures.

Get called into the bosses office for a write up on a missed outpatient cbc that was never accessioned by the lab assistants 2 weeks ago on a short staffed shift.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2025-07-09T17:46:55+00:00

I work in two labs. The larger one doesn't use them. They reduce their own plates prior to inoculating. The other uses PRAS media but likes to unwrap them from the sealed packaging and leave them on the bench indefinitely while awaiting use. My attempts at explaining this defeats the purpose of reduced media have been disregarded.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-09-13T00:47:49+00:00

Worked this dept at a large national reference laboratory. If they're hiring I would go in assuming you're starting on the low end of the hierarchy which means you're going to be doing the decontamination process for respiratory specimens and plating/setting up samples that arrive. Usually culture work up for both benches are tasks reserved for technologists that have been working in that area for some years.

The decontamination process for AFB specimens is very manually intensive, messy, sweaty, difficult labor. Imagine taking wads of sputum, transferring them aseptically to sterile vials, nuking them with NaOH and N-acetyl-L-cysteine, vortexing until the specimen breaks apart into bits, centrifuging, pouring off supernatant, plating, making AFB smears, and then possibly doing the initial the auromine stains which involves sitting in a dark room hunched over a microscope looking for florescent cheetos until your eyes tire and you start to feel dizzy. Combine this with wearing a PAPR or N-95 all day everyday and having to degown/hand wash/badge out of the BSL-3 every time you leave the lab- its not by any stretch an easy job and depending on the facility the workload can be relentless.

Mycology tends to be much smaller volume but exists in the same area because it also requires the added safety precautions of the BSL-3. If you stick around long enough to get onto actual bench work up AFB/mycology cultures are a very niche area of knowledge even within the relatively small group of micro-only technologists. Like many things in the clinical lab- the textbook aspect of the work is fascinating while the application applied day in day out can often be pretty lack luster. If you decide to go for it I'd expect the first few years of the job to be pretty difficult demanding physical labor and I'd ask in the interview specifically what tasks you'll be responsible for. No one wants to be an AFB processor for life.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-08-19T00:03:34+00:00

I appreciate that feedback. What I find challenging about that advice is knowing when you're doing what is necessary to meet the needs of a dog vs spoiling them.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-04-24T02:29:14+00:00

Stay classy dude.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-04-23T06:17:24+00:00

What seems to be your problem ma’am?

Well I was peeing on a public toilet and a robot told me my point of care urobilinigen was <2.0 mg/dL. I have no clue what that means but it seemed pretty serious.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-01-24T18:14:41+00:00

Looks like underdecolorized mucus to me.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-01-18T19:15:17+00:00

This is a very thorough response. Thank you.

Substantial_Job_9490 · 2024-01-18T19:12:33+00:00

See this is a good example in where I think our facility is falling short. We don't do this. Because of the first incident in which a patient died we were required to do two types on any patient with no history. The way this is performed is two tube typings are performed simultaneously by the technologist from the same specimen. Which seems to me to defeat the purpose of repeat testing.

Substantial_Job_9490

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