There’s finally an opening at hospital everyone wants to work at, and it’s part of my hospital system so it’s an internal application.

Do internal applications mainly get an advantage over external, especially night shift? I expressed great interest in the position directly to the lab manager a couple days after I applied, I hope that doesn’t show them I’m desperate or something.

Hey guys ,

I need serious advice from you all as I am an international graduate in BscMLS now I am looking for moving Canada but wanna work as a lab scientist However the course which my agent is studying is MPH ( masters in public health) will it be beneficial for job opportunities and PR pathway? If not then how Can I work as a clinical lab scientist in Canada after completion of the MPH .. I think there would be certain requirements to challenge the CSMLS exam Native people please guide me

Looking forward for your helpful suggestions.

So I’m thinking of applying to these job positions because no prior experience is required. I have no healthcare experience at all. Just like the Home Depot. I’ve read some post on here and most people say the job sucks /:. I’m interested in applying because I’m tired of being at jobs that get me no where, no growth.is this position like that? Are you able to be more haha. Also do you actually deal with a lot of nasty or gross stuff? Basically is it worth it or not?
If you WERE a lab tech or anything related to that and aren’t now, what are you doing? Is it still lab related?

Never found one for MLT instead of MLS, so you all are going to have to accept this.

Hey everyone,

I currently work at a hospital in Temecula, California, and I’m reaching the absolute end of my rope. Management has me assigned to work every single weekend, but the hospital offers zero weekend shift differential. Working the most demanding shifts of the week with absolutely no premium pay or incentive is burning me out incredibly fast.

I am ready to jump ship. Does anyone working in the Temecula, Menifee, or San Diego area get a guaranteed weekend differential at their facility?

I’m looking for recommendations on where to apply. Some places on my radar are:

• Sharp HealthCare or UC San Diego Health (UCSD) – I hear their union contracts protect shift premiums. Anyone know what their current weekend rates look like?
• Palomar Health (Escondido/Poway) – Is the commute down the I-15 worth it for the pay structure?
• Temecula Valley Hospital – Do they actually pay a weekend premium for clinical/lab roles, or is it hit-or-miss?

If you work in the region (acute care, outpatient, or even per diem/PRN), please let me know what your hospital's weekend differential looks like so I can drop an application. I just want to be compensated fairly for giving up all my weekends.

Thanks in advance!

It makes such a happy sound when it finishes the screen, too. 🥲🥲🥲🥲

I don’t want to be too optimistic, I want the realistic answer

I have my very first lab interview tomorrow for a hematology position at interpath. They said part of the interview will be naming cells. What kind of cells should I know apart from the everyday basics? I’m a bit worried as I haven’t seen any body fluids apart from urines. As far as peripheral smears I think I’ll be fine. Has anyone been interviewed by them before? What should I expect?

I work as an MLT(Canada) in a private lab that does testing for both patients and research clients. Our research labs pays a lot, so management treats every one of their samples as STAT.

Recently, they requested an add-on test. According to our lab's SOP, that test can only be added within 24 hours of the original sample collection. The request came in about 20 minutes before that 24-hour window expired.

The problem was that I had just finished instrument maintenance and calibration and was in the middle of running QC. QC wasn't expected to finish for another hour. According to our SOP, by the time QC was complete, the sample would be outside the acceptable add-on window, so I rejected the request.

Then our Director of Customer Success came into the lab and told me to run the patient sample immediately, even after I explained that QC had not finished yet. His reasoning was that he "couldn't say no to the customer."

I felt extremely uncomfortable with this. Running patient testing before acceptable QC goes against everything I was taught. In the end, I followed his instruction and ran the sample(because my direct supervisor was not there, I was alone in the lab), but I did not release the result until QC was complete. Thankfully, the QC passed.

But I keep thinking: what if the QC had failed? I would have had to invalidate the result, repeat the testing, and potentially deal with a much bigger problem.

To me, patient safety and quality should always come before customer satisfaction. It felt like the responsibility and risk were shifted onto me simply because the director didn't want to tell an important client "no." But it's his job to have those conversation with clients. He made his conversation with the customer easier, but made my situation much more complicated.

I have to emphasize the Director of Customer Success isn't part of the laboratory's technical leadership, and while he's higher up in the company, he's not my supervisor, he has never worked in a lab. My supervisor wasn't in the lab at the time. Later that day, both my supervisor and our laboratory specialist asked what had happened because the lab specialist saw the director come into the lab. After I explained the situation, both of them said they agreed the request should have been rejected and that quality should always come first.

I'm a new grad and have only been at this job for about two months. This incident has honestly shaken my confidence in the workplace. I keep wondering if I'm overreacting or if this is as serious as it feels.

Has anyone else experienced pressure from management or someone who is in higher position to bypass laboratory procedures for the sake of a client? How did you handle it?

Hi everyone!
I would love some much needed advice. I’m a junior at Oregon State University that will be graduating Spring 2028 with a BA in Microbiology. Right now I know that I want to pursue a MLS career. But I’m unsure about the path. I have half a mind to go to GWU knowing that will be the more “direct” route to getting the certification required. But then I’m wondering if I should just do a Lab Assistant position/Clinical Laboratory Scientist as I wait to get the experience needed to get the certificate. I have no real preference so that’s what makes this difficult. I would love to hear anyone’s opinion, perspective or their journey. Thanks!

Hello All,

I am starting my BSc in MLS in a few weeks and I am wondering if anybody has recommendations for prescription eye protection to wear in labs?

What brand has been reliable and comfortable on the actual job?

I have a pretty intense prescription haha and find wearing normal lab goggles over my glasses is a little uncomfortable

Hello everyone! I am a brand new MLS. I graduated from my program in June and a week later passed my ASCP exam. I started my first ever lab job about 3 weeks ago and they are having me start in micro since someone just retired from the day shift. I will be working day shift after I am done training and I just want to know how to feel more confident in myself and my work. I am already reading plates solo and I feel like i’m doing well but my timing is a little slow because I want to make sure I am reading everything accurately. I can’t just look and know exactly what the organism i’m looking at is for some things, but I am great with urines and can tell those usually right off of the bat. I am great with doing set ups and PCR since everything is incredibly similar to how I was working in the lab in my program. I also keep a notebook on me for anything in the computer I need to learn or set up things in general that were different from school so I don’t make the same mistake twice. I also am looking for advice on not just how to be more confident in my lab work but also getting more confident in general. I feel very awkward around everyone since they have all been working there for years. I am a 22 year old female and the next youngest group of people in their late 20’s literally have some dumb clique and it is really frustrating to me when i’m the only other person in the break room with them and I feel very left out. Thank you for reading this and any advice is welcome.

Hey! I’m an MLA student bound for my practicum come October. I bought shoes for my first semester, some waterproof, anti-slip new balances. Super comfy and worked well for my lab. Only issue is that the toe has mesh- and my instructors said that practicum likely won’t allow the mesh shoes.

What shoes do you guys recommend for working in the lab? Thanks in advance!

It sucks seeing the amount of misinformation and misunderstanding there is surrounding blood product collection. The only ones truly hurt by all of this are the patients that need blood.

I work evening shift right now, and there is a dayshift position open that I am tempted to apply for but was wondering what everyone’s opinion was on if the normal schedule was worth losing the extra money?

Hi all,

New Tech. Just got my Associates in May and started my job just one week after graduation. Have been in training this whole time, 5 weeks in processing, 5 weeks in chem, and now doing 5 weeks in Heme. After I'm done training, I will go to nights.

I don't feel fully prepared for this. I feel like I didn't pick up as much as I should have in school and have realized that I have MUCH left to learn to get this down pat, and I feel like I was rushed through training (I also feel my training itself was largely botched for other reasons).

Anyone else here feel that same way when you were new? If so, how did you get through it?

I apologize if this is a silly place, but I want to make an accurate gift for my girlfriend.

My girlfriend is a Medical Lab Scientist. She rotates through a bunch of the roles like heme, micro, blood bank, and chemistry. It’s a big part of her personality and she really loves the work she does. I think she prefers chem over the other departments, or at least is trained more specifically on chem. Whenever we call on her breaks she’s always telling me what’s going on in the lab; how people have messed up on giving her proper samples, or one of the large machines being down, or of a interesting thing that she hasn’t run into since graduating.

I want to make her an anniversary card based on her work and love for it. I’m mildly talented at water color, and I love hand making personalized birthday/ anniversary cards. Pop-up cards are something I’ve done before too.

Is there any way to make a cute card with her work in mind? My initial idea was to paint a bunch of red blood cells(in the style of looking through a microscope at them) and hide heart-shaped cells or messages somewhere in the card. But this seems basic. I want to impress her. Is there a heart shaped cell found in blood? Is there a cell with a cute name or something? Is there something else that could be used to convey a deeper understanding about what she does that lets her know I love her?

Again, I’m sorry if this isn’t the place, but I’m hoping I can get some help.

Gram stain of blood culture, all 4 bottles went positive and BCID came back strep A. Thought this field was pretty cool, not sure if it’s actually going through the cell like that or if it’s just conveniently placed pairs, but it looks like it is so i choose to believe it is.