Do any of your relatives work in laboratory medicine? Tell us how you and your family member ended up in the same career path.

I have a younger cousin who also works in Laboratory Medicine.  I was working in the lab as an MLT in the main lab and I recommended my cousin for an entry level lab assistant job.  She worked as a lab asistant for a few years and at the same time she started going to school to be a Histotech.  She graduated and worked there as a Histotech for quite a few years, she has sinced moved to another hospital, but she is still a Histotech and enjoys it very much. I am very glad I was able to help her get started in Laboratory Medicine, and I am very proud of what a great Histotech she has become.

---

Serotech

My brother and my niece are both Clinical Laboratory Scientists/Medical Technologists. It is a good thing that the three of us have ended up in the laboratory as we need to off-set the pharmacists when we have family discussions. My father, two sisters, a brother-in-law, son-in-law, and daughter are pharmacists. I think there is a genetic component. We are all interested in microorganisms! What does that mean?

As the elder laboratorian, I'd like to think that I influenced my family members to enter the profession. I hope they are as satisfied with their career choice as I am.  

When I was a child, my mother was a lab technician working in a physician's office.  She would work evenings and there would be a few hours between the time she started work and the time my father got home from work, so I would accompany her to the lab.  She would set me in front of a microscope with slides of Gram Stains and Giemsa stained blood smears to keep me occupied.  I literally was looking at slides before I could read!  It must have made an impression, because I myself became a Medical Technologist eleven years ago.  I have tried other health-related careers, but have come to realize that the laboratory, microbiology in particular, is my true career love.

My Dad was a MedTech (and still is) and he brought me to the lab all the time when I was a kid. I got to see all kinds of cool specimens and he taught me a lot of neat stuff. I knew how to do a UA by the tme I was 10 years old. He would show me hemo slides and discuss various bodily functions. He made it seem interesting and I always knew I wanted to do this.

(I graduate next spring!)