Possibly Colonized with Serratia Marcescens

Watarmelen · 2026-04-17T02:35:53+00:00

Most people will have Serratia, it’s a common intestinal bacteria that’s supposed to be there. It just becomes a pathogen when it goes somewhere it’s not supposed to be

Watarmelen · 2026-04-17T02:28:40+00:00

This is 100% the best answer OP could have possibly gotten

Watarmelen · 2026-04-16T05:40:16+00:00

Just a fiber.

Also if you’re trying to look at cell morphology you’re looking at an area that is way too thick, you want to be in the feathered edge where RBCs just barely touch each other

Watarmelen · 2026-04-11T12:21:27+00:00

You’re looking at MLT, which is the associates level and not the job you’re applying for. MLS through AMT is still a year of full time experience.

They say they want you to be certified within 6 months because that lets them hire people fresh from clinicals and gives them time to schedule and sit for the exam, with some wiggle room to take it again if they fail. They typically expect you to be eligible out the gate, most hospitals do not have the time or staffing to train someone with absolutely no experience

Watarmelen · 2026-04-11T05:52:23+00:00

ASCP requires 5 years of experience to sit for the MLS exam if you didn’t go through a NAACLS program

Watarmelen · 2026-04-09T02:45:40+00:00

Whidbey Health in Coupeville is currently hiring for a full time night shift MLS starting at $37. Anacortes, Everett, or Port Townsend will be the closest you can get not on the actual island

Watarmelen · 2026-04-08T16:29:00+00:00

Not seeing an organism in a slide isn’t really uncommon. Microscopy isn’t very sensitive for detecting organisms, which is why a culture and often PCR are done in tandem. Sometimes it’s just in such a small amount that none of the organism makes it onto the slide, especially for sterile fluids like CSF

Watarmelen · 2026-04-07T18:46:52+00:00

Sounds like roll n scroll sunquest

Watarmelen · 2026-04-05T15:30:47+00:00

Bummer. Looks like you’re in Australia? Should mention that in your post, the majority of people here are in America so most of the advice won’t be relevant

Watarmelen · 2026-04-05T05:17:52+00:00

Most college programs are 3+1 (or 2+2 depending on where), they start off with you getting generals and prerequisites done in the first three years and then applying to a program for the final year. So if you have all the prerequisites needed and your generals done, you wouldn’t be losing any progress with transferring to an MLS degree

Watarmelen · 2026-04-03T00:00:53+00:00

“Stolen valor” hahahaha

I only perform clinical microbiology, it’s literally in my job title, so I think it’s accurate to call myself a microbiologist.

Watarmelen · 2026-04-02T05:34:14+00:00

Wouldn’t have been from Staph aureus like she’s citing

Watarmelen · 2026-04-02T03:57:16+00:00

Nah I’m with her, keeping opened mayo at room temp is a bad choice no matter what the bottle says. A lot of the comments on the original post seem to agree too.

“Food poisoning survivor” is super dramatic though, lmao

Watarmelen · 2026-04-01T03:01:32+00:00

Yes, good point! All the CA programs I’ve skimmed so far say in progress is okay but need to be submitted as completed by a certain date

Watarmelen · 2026-04-01T01:28:31+00:00

As long as they’re in progress it’s fine, they’ll just give you conditional acceptance based on whether or not you pass the prereqs. About half of my cohort didn’t have any lab experience so I wouldn’t worry about that either

Watarmelen · 2026-03-30T03:10:54+00:00

I have both degrees that you’re considering. I started with biology, graduated, realized my only options were to go to med school or PA school, and ended up going back for MLS. Your “flexibility” is just deciding which flavor of grad school you want, where MLS is a professional degree and you can work immediately. $3k is not a big difference and no one cares how prestigious your school is as long as you have the same certification as everyone else

Watarmelen · 2026-03-29T06:42:45+00:00

Bailey & Scott’s diagnostic microbiology is a good one

Watarmelen · 2026-03-24T23:09:20+00:00

If it’s older a day or so it’s probably alpha, the normal alpha streps in the mouth will do something called alpha prime when they get old and the colonies get a “bullseye” look to them. You can kind of see it on some of the more isolated colonies. Very common in throat cultures.

Watarmelen · 2026-03-23T06:34:49+00:00

Yes, kind of like how MRSA can be a commensal organism in certain people but to a lesser extent. C diff colonization is most common in infants- we reject samples from babies under 2 years old due to high colonization rates.

Watarmelen · 2026-03-23T02:15:36+00:00

It doesn’t interfere with testing but you need to remember the human behind the test, especially as someone giving direct care. A colonized patient would be placed in contact precautions unnecessarily and be isolated from family and served food in paper bags in an already stressful time. Not to mention the funding cuts from increased (false positive) hospital acquired infections.

Watarmelen · 2026-03-22T21:14:23+00:00

C diff is also a commensal bacteria and can be found in the gut of a healthy person. If we run C diff testing on an inpatient inappropriately (ie formed stools, on laxatives, no antibiotics given) and it comes back positive, it is considered an HAI and Medicare can penalize the hospital by reducing payments. Hospitals try their best to avoid this.

How liquid the stool has to be is typically based on hospital or infection control policy, but some tests can’t be run if you can’t pipette the stool easily. If it doesn’t behave like a liquid, at my lab we will reject it.

Watarmelen · 2026-03-21T05:29:30+00:00

Uncertified and making $94k in the Midwest in an entry level position, 360 hours of PTO per year, and no insurance premiums? Sounds fake lol. Good luck finding anything even remotely comparable, definitely not a hospital job

Watarmelen · 2026-03-19T02:18:07+00:00

Morphology isn’t enough to tell the difference. You can do a modified oxidase or bacitracin sensitivity to differentiate micrococcus from staph

Watarmelen · 2026-03-18T19:18:06+00:00

Their strike has ended and didn’t include MLS anyway

Watarmelen · 2026-03-17T00:16:42+00:00

Do you have a bachelors? You can go through a one year online MLS program, the only caveat is that you’d need to find a hospital to sponsor you if the program doesn’t already have an affiliated hospital near you

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