I am a wife, a mother of two awesome kids, a daughter, a sister, and a nurse. I am also a  survivor.

At the age of 43 a routine screening mammogram picked up an abnormality ...

KISSIMMEE, FL -- Christmas decorations next to palm trees are a fun treat for your Philadelphia-based reporter at the Gaylord Palms Convention Center in Kissimmee, FL, where opening remarks for the 15th Annual Meeting of the Association for Molecular Pathology just wrapped up.

Tim O'Leary, MD, PhD, chair of the Program Committee, welcomed attendees to the meeting before AMP President Jan Nowak, MD, PhD, awarded ...

In a week where the medical community is up in arms about the new mammogram guidelines, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced women should get their first Pap test at age 21, regardless if they are sexually active before then.

The ACOG said unnecessary treatment for a rare cancer can happen when earlier screening occurs. According to this

I last blogged that I would suggest how to really fix what's not fair in your laboratory. We've all felt rising resentment from unfair treatment: an extra weekend, being blamed for another's mistake, a poor evaluation. Let's consider the chronic problem that's unfair to everyone -- if it hasn't happened to you, it will soon - when the system is broken.

Examples: nurses "writing up" a tech, how holidays ...

Back in September, I traveled home to the Lehigh Valley (Allentown and Bethlehem, PA, area) for a get-together with my girlfriends from high school.

I made a cake for the occasion (one I was pretty proud of). We were cutting the cake when my friend Tanya asked if it had egg in it. It did. She was planning on giving a piece to her 1-year-old son Gavin, but she told me she just found out Gavin had egg allergies.

A ...

This semester has been stressful. I have a full schedule and a lot of projects due. Just this semester I started the Master's program. I have stayed busy with lots of studying and reading assignments. I am taking Blood Bank, Mycology, Chemistry, Hematology/Coagulation and a research class.

I must say it's been one of the hardest semesters I have had so far. However, graduation is within sight. We are in the ...

You know those people who have a fear of commitment?  Well, I think I am on the opposite pole from those people.  I would say that I am addicted to commitment.  Have a project to take on?  Sign me up.  Need help with a school event?  Sign me up.  Four year degree with an intense clinical internship?  Sign me up.  My latest commitment involves a new pet.

I've already ...

There's been so much material available lately on how to search for a job, especially because of job losses during the recession. We've all read articles about it, and a lot of the advice is repetitive after a while.

In her book 366 Tips for a Successful Job Search, Cynthia Wright gives the reader a bunch of new tips I'd never heard of before. Here are 10 that struck me. Do you have any helpful ones ...

To stay mobile in your career, you need to learn how to "manage up." You should learn how to keep a thumb on your boss -- figuratively speaking, of course -- so you can stay ahead in your job and get what you want out of your manager.

In their book Working With You Is Killing Me, Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster offer the following tips on ...

As students, we are taught about laboratory safety and how to handle situations as they arise. However, you never know how you are going to react in a situation until you're faced with it head-on.

It's important to realize blood products could pose a threat to you. Even the slightest cut could expose you to a lot of bacteria and infectious diseases. 

A fellow student of mine was cut ...

"Scott refuses to define the word equitable," someone once complained about me.

The American Heritage dictionary defines equitable as "just and impartial," then tells us to see fair. Fair, unsurprisingly, is

A few years ago I was consulted by a new manager who was frustrated because several of his employees refused to sign their annual performance evaluation. Some accused him of playing favorites and being unusually harsh and punitive. After speaking with him, I learned that he had made several common but crucial mistakes.

First, using the score of 1 through 5, where 3 was acceptable performance, he decided that ...

This week I was able to attend Wisconsin's Annual Mycobacteriology Conference with my manager and another coworker.  It was a one day event held in Madison, I believe there were about 60 attendees with labs from around the state represented.  As a BSL-2 laboratory our role is staining, processing and growing acid fast cultures,  If we have a positive bottle or slant we confirm by stain and send ...

Acknowledging healthcare reform has been controversial would definitely be an understatement.

Almost everywhere I've traveled lately I've heard highly emotional and passionate positions for both sides of the debate. This past weekend, a large group of supporters stood on a corner holding handmade signs with messages like, "Healthcare for All," and "Everyone Deserves to be Healthy."Just down the street in ...

ADVANCE is sad to report that Teresa Marie Beiser, 36, of Gladstone, OR, was fatally shot at her workplace, Legacy MetroLab in Tualatin, OR, yesterday.

Beiser was reportedly shot by her estranged husband, Robert James Beiser, 39, who later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Two of Beiser's coworkers, a 20-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man, were also injured.

Beiser fired ...

As a kid I heard Talk is cheap, meaning that talking about doing something is the easy part. Boy, was that the truth! My homework and chores didn't get themselves done, no matter how much I talked about doing them or (often enough) why I hadn't. And there was NO BASEBALL until they were done.

Imagine children forming committees, having meetings, setting up email groups and web sites, and "educating" ...

The Joint Commission has announced the appointment of Jennifer F. Rhamy, MBA, MA, MT(ASCP), SBB, HP as executive director of the Laboratory Accreditation Program. 

Rhamy, a veteran healthcare professional with experience in both hospitals and blood centers, has extensive knowledge of the inner workings of hospital-based and freestanding clinical laboratories. Most recently, she worked as a blood center ...

Just the other day a question of how to alert physicians of laboratory reflex rules came up. After all, everyone's rules are slightly different.

Examples: if the dipstick is positive for blood or leukocyte esterase, perform a microscopic examination of urine sediment; if the triglycerides are elevated, perform a direct LDL cholesterol measurement; if a screen for unexpected antibodies is positive, perform ...

Biotest Diagnostics awarded agreements with Premier healthcare alliance for its advanced serology solutions

Biotest Diagnostics Corp. recently announced a multi-year agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners, L.P., the group purchasing unit of Premier Inc., for its advanced serology solutions, including traditional blood bank reagents, and the TANGO optimo automated blood bank system.

The agreement ...

Don Watson says in his introduction to Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant, & Management Jargon that weasel words are bringing about the death of language. "The real disease," he writes, "is in the system: in the new models of business organisation, in the triumph ...

The other week I watched a show on the Discovery channel in disbelief. Called Pig Bomb, it described hoards of feral pigs roaming the Southeast. Locals may have cross-bred the American boar with its ill-tempered cousin, the Eurasian wild boar, for

3M, St. Paul, MN announced today the introduction of the 3M Rapid Detection RSV Test. Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infects the lungs and breathing passages and is a common cause of bronchitis and pneumonia in children under 1 year.

The Rapid Detection RSV Test is designed to detect the ...

Cooperative Diagnostics LLC, Greenwood, SC, recently announced the availability of a new diagnostic assay for Xenotropic Murine Leukemia-Related Virus (XMRV) to assist physicians in the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome and other disorders potentially caused by the virus. Testing services will also be made available to the general public, according to a company ...

It never ceases to amaze me how different each day in the lab can be...  I was able to perform another "first" today.  Our Microbiology department is responsible for obtaining nasopharyngeal swabs in the outpatient testing area, on occasions when the usual staff is unavailable to do them.  I had seen them done, read the procedure, just hadn't ever collected one yet.  So I offered to go and ...