Clinical Lab Research

During the summer of junior year of college I was recruited to work as a Summer Lab Science student in the department of lab medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic. During this study, there were several things that I learned that has helped me develop my chemistry knowledge. Some of the skills were that I was able to develop the habit of time management and multi-tasking as well as get well-acquainted with lab protocols and equipment through the working period. This is because every morning I first checked the Mass spectrometry machine and performed maintenance to make sure everything works well. Then I check in and registered samples. Once I have obtained enough samples, I started the extraction process. Basically, the extraction process is the process that is performed to obtain the purest form of a sample to run it in the Mass spectrometry. The lab bench that I worked was Endocrinology lab that mainly focused on hormones. My assigned lab test was 1,25 Dihydroxy vitamin D. This lab test was designed for the analysis of vitamin D levels in the blood. This helps in regulating patients not to have too high or too low Vitamin D level in their blood. This is because too low of vitamin D will cause rickets and too high of vitamin D causes kidney failure. In fact, in my bench, I was able to analyze several patient samples and help the lab technologist release their result by the end of the day. This has given me the skill of multi-tasking and time management. In addition, every week the research development team comes to search on how to improve the procedures on these experiments. In this task I review obtained results and help the research team in what ways we can perform a quality-based results for patients. There is also weekly based research discussion on experiments that go live after the discovery of diseases. At the end of my program, we were given an assignment to present the experience and research on our assigned bench. I reviewed SOP protocols and prepared a power point presentation focusing on my assigned test and also about the Mass Spectrometry. Hence using the skill and experience I plan to work in the research team for a year before joining Physician Assistant School.

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Artifacts:https://jobs.mayoclinic.org/job/rochester/summer-lab-science-program/33647/21110140768