My Second Medical Technology Page

My Career Begins

I got a job in a local hospital and worked there for a total of thirteen years. During that time I worked in mainly three departments - chem, hemo and transfusion. Of these, I have to say that transfusion was my favorite. It is almost the last one of the laboratory sciences that still requires some "thinking" on the part of the tech. Most of the others have gone automated, and while there's nothing wrong with this - it makes for more accurate and consistant results - it just wasn't why I was attracted to the field. I had also discovered during my clinical rotations that I was really good at identifying atypical antibodies. This involves taking the patient's serum and using a "panel" of reagent red cells, which have known antigens, and seeing what kind pattern you get. This helps to eliminate most antigens from being implicated in being the one (or more) culprit which is the cause of the antibody. In other words, I get to play detective.

My next position was working in a Rare Reference lab, where I identify difficult antibodies, find blood for difficult to match patients, as well as wash blood and thaw frozen blood. Most fresh blood is "good" for 42 days, but there is a process where it can be suspended in glycerol and then frozen and kept at -75 degrees C for up to 10 years! To use it, the blood is rapidly thawed in a body temperature waterbath and then the glycerol is removed by adding decreasing concentrations of saline solution and then washing it to remove any hemolyzed portions. This is especially good for people who donate their own blood for surgery (known as "autologous" donation), but then the surgery is delayed past the 42 day outdate. We can freeze their units and have them ready for their surgery within hours.

Freezing is also done in the case of rare units. Some people have received so much blood during their lifetimes that they have developed multiple antibodies to other people's blood. Many doctors also try to avoid this from happening, especially in the case of children with Sickle Cell Anemia or Thallasemia. Hematologists (doctors who specialize in blood diseases) know that these children will receive hundreds of units of blood during their lifetimes, so the will "phenotype." or obtain the antigen profile, of these children BEFORE they receive blood which may cause antibody formation.