Immunology Rotation
Honestly, I was a little nervous about my immunology rotation! However, once I met my instructor and started learning about the machine they used, it was not so bad after all.
At the hospital I was at, they have the Centaur XP which runs tests from HIV, Hepatitis A, B and C, BNP'S, testosterones, prolactins, etc. It was actually a pretty cool machine. It utilizes competitive and sandwich assays to measure what it's looking for.
A lot of the other tests, such as vitamin B12 and complement, are run in the chemistry lab. We did not have a lot of specimen but it took about an hour and a half to run controls, maintenance and calibrators. At the end of week, I was able to run the machine on my own. I had good lessons in quality control and troubleshooting.
I will never forget it is always important to mix up your controls! I had ordered controls and put them on the machine and we kept getting errors. It turned out I had forgotten to mix them before I put them on. Needless to say, we had to rerun the controls. It was a good lesson and one I will never forget!
I was also able to get to know a fellow student from another program. We had fun sharing stories and learning about each others' programs. We did not find too much of a difference between the two. She was in her second week of a 6-week rotation in the chemistry lab. I learned a lot and got to make friends with someone I may end up working with one day.
I had a good immunology rotation, now it's on to microbiology!