Medical Lab Assistant/Technician

5 Months In – Working as an MLA/T | Pt 1

by Noemi

It’s been 5 months since I graduated from college, and 5 months working as an MLA/T.

During this time I’ve had two jobs that were completely different from each other. One under the title of clinical assistant/lab technician and the other a medical lab assistant. I have to say, it’s been an interesting journey so far learning more about the profession and the different roles we can play in healthcare.

The job I have now is completely different from my previous one. My first job was incredibly patient focused, while my role now is specimen management and has no patient interaction whatsoever. I guess you can think of my experience so far as the two extremes of the profession.

Here’s I’ll be talking about my experience in my first job!

Working as a Clinical Assistant/ Lab Tech

Working as a clinical assistant/ lab technician was such an interesting experience, especially since I was working alongside RPNs. As I mentioned before, this job was very much patient oriented; from performing phlebotomies, to ECGs, to triaging, and screening patients for symptoms COVID-19. There were honestly only a handful of tasks that were non-patient tasks like autoclaving and kit preparation. Below is a breakdown of the tasks I did at my previous job (note: these were taken from my “Placement Diaries: Week 2 and Beyond” post with some changes.)

  • LAB WORK
    • Performing phlebotomy (blood draws) was one of the main things I did at the clinic. The amount of patients varies everyday since the clinic doesn’t have a full lab; some days there would be a lot of blood work to do, while others there would only be two or three. We would centrifuge the tubes (specifically SST tubes) when needed.
    • Urine dipsticks was another aspect of lab work I do to check for anything abnormal. We tend to do them for those with suspected UTIs and for those doing physicals.
    • Pregnancy tests are done on occasion, but these weren’t not done as much
  • PATIENTS
    • Screening patients for COVID-19 symptoms and asking additional questions when necessary
    • Disinfecting patient rooms and getting them ready for the next patient
    • Triaging patients and documenting
    • Performing physicals for the patients; checking the patients urine, doing their height and weight, and checking blood pressure and using the pulse oximeter.
  • AUTOCLAVING
    • Checking the autoclave room to see if there are any new instruments that need to be sterilize.
    • When there were instruments, I prepared them to be sterilized and then autoclave them
    • Did control testing using biological indicators to ensure that the autoclave is in proper working order
  • SPECIMEN HANDLING
    • It’s incredibly important to handle all specimens with care, ensure the correct specimen is with the correct patient and their requisition, and to label and store the specimens correctly.
    • In addition to blood work and urine specimens that need to be labeled, there are Pap smear specimens from the family physicians and biopsy specimens from the dermatologist that need to be labelled and stored properly to be sent of the external labs.
  • KIT PREPARATIONS
    • When the stock is low, I prepared Pap smear kits and stool kits so that they’re ready to be used for the physicians and the patients.
  • OTHER TASKS INCLUDED
    • Faxing and filing scanned documents away on the EMR system we use at the clinic and helping receptionists
    • Helping the two other students at the clinic

I learnt a lot about patient care during my time there, and enjoyed it since I was surrounded by such amazing people. This aspect of being an MLA/T is a very interesting and rewarding one, especially if you really enjoy that patient interaction.

Performing phlebotomy on patients and trying to calm them down is always such an interesting task since you don’t know how to interact with the patient until you see them.

Talking to patients and trying to write out what they’re describing in the document for the doctor, and also trying to make sure that you don’t take too much time with them if the doctors are on a tight schedule.

Overall, I miss that patient interaction, not really the phlebotomy, but just the patient interaction in general. It’s nice that being an MLA/T allows you to have that patient interaction, and not be a nurse.

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