SCOPE Magazine - December 2022

Solve medical mysteries with Mason Health Laboratory

Resuelve misterios médicos con Mason Health Laboratory Página

Lab Assistant Melody Warren prepares to take a blood sample from Laboratory Supervisor Lindsay Roberts.

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Become a health care detective: Mason Health Laboratory staff work behind the scenes to solve medical puzzles

From left, Cheyanne Brewer, MLT, Paul Nixon, MLS, Elizabeth Burton, MLT, Jeffrey Chapple, MLT, and Laboratory Supervisor Lindsay Roberts, MLS, pose in the Mason General Hospital Laboratory.

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If you enjoy solving medical mysteries and puzzles, a career in medical laboratory science may be for you.

“I get to be a detective in my line of work,” said Lindsay Roberts, Mason Health’s Laboratory Supervisor. “When people watch TV, they see doctors and nurses performing lab tests, so it’s not obvious that in real life, there are other people working behind the scenes to make that happen.”

Nationwide, hospital laboratories are facing a shortage of laboratory workers, from phlebotomists to medical lab technicians to medical lab scientists/technologists. Much of the shortage is attributed to retirement attrition and burnout.

“We saw this trend coming years ago, as the industry stopped recruiting heavily and schools stopped offering classes, like molecular science, that encouraged people to look into this field,” Roberts said. “We want to seed the curiosity in young people.”

Mason Health staff will be visiting local schools this school year to share about the medical laboratory field, and this spring, Mason Health will once again offer a scholarship to a Shelton High School Health Sciences Academy student who wants to become a phlebotomist (see sidebar).

Mason Health will pay for the 10-week phlebotomy training and offer a full-time job afterward.

The District is also offering a $5,000 bonus to anyone who is hired for an open position in the Laboratory Department.

Most people do not know that the medical laboratory field exists, and many current lab professionals experienced rocky paths toward their careers.

“I did not know what a lab tech was until I signed up for the program at my community college,” said Cheyanne Brewer, a medical lab technician who worked at Mason Health this past August. “I was a stayat-home mom with two kids, and I asked the career counselor, what do you have?”

The field ended up being meaningful to Brewer — she connected her lab work to the experiences she had in labor delivering her children and understood the importance of lab professionals.

Roberts was interested in science but was not sure how to get on a path to work in a medical lab.

After pursuing associate’s degrees in science and math, she worked as a veterinary technician for five years.

“This is where I started to flounder,” she said. “The information was just not out there for me to figure out how to get into a laboratory at my local hospital without having to drive an hour-and-a-half for extra schooling.”

Roberts finally came across a new medical lab technician (MLT) program, which offered an associate’s degree and certification to work as a medical lab technician upon graduation.

Cheyanne Brewer, MLT, observes blood samples in test tubes at the Mason General Hospital Laboratory.

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“The information was just not out there for me”

Lindsay Roberts, Laboratory Supervisor

From left, Cheyanne Brewer, MLT, Paul Nixon, MLS, Elizabeth Burton, MLT, Jeffrey Chapple, MLT, and Laboratory Supervisor Lindsay Roberts, MLS, pose in the Mason General Hospital Laboratory.

Careers in the medical laboratory field

Medical lab technicians perform lab tests or chemical analyses of body fluids using microscopes or other advanced lab equipment. Lab techs also maintain, clean and sterilize equipment, prepare solutions and collect blood or tissue from patients.

The job usually requires an associate’s degree and is different from a phlebotomist, which is an entrylevel position in a lab and involves drawing blood from patients, and medical lab scientists or technologists, who typically hold a bachelor’s degree and have more advanced training.

Locally, only one MLT program exists in the South Sound, at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood. Mason Health is working on building an online instructor partnership with the college and will offer clinical rotations for MLT students soon.

After graduating from the MLT program at Folsom Lake College in 2015, Roberts found work at Marshall Medical Center in her hometown. She worked there for five years as an MLT, and about three years into it, she decided to pursue her bachelor’s degree.

By that time, she had found an online program offering a bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory science from the University of Cincinnati. The program allowed her to do her clinical rotations at the hospital where she worked.

Elizabeth Burton, MLT, examines samples in the Mason General Hospital Laboratory.

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In 2019, Roberts and her husband visited Shelton. They wanted to move out of California because of the regular threat of fires, and they love the rain. Roberts wanted to find a small, rural hospital that could feel like family.

“I had read about Mason Health,” she said. “I wanted to be in a place with real weather, I wanted to see clouds in the sky. The place where I worked in California was a family. I felt like the people working together in a small hospital would be much closer. I was right.”

Interested in a career in a medical laboratory?

Shelton High School student Isaac Richardson completing a lab at Shelton High School

Health Sciences Academy

Mason Health offers a $5,000 signing bonus to anyone who applies and is accepted for a job in our Laboratory Department. Training opportunities and tuition reimbursement programs are available.

Mason Health also offers an annual scholarship to one Shelton High School Health Sciences Academy graduate who enters the medical laboratory field. Mason Health pays for the 10-week course for a phlebotomist license and guarantees employment directly after graduation.

Scholarships are also offered for nursing students and to become a medical assistant.

Interested Shelton High School students should talk to their school counselor about choosing the Health Sciences Academy when they enter 10th grade. Pathways are available in direct patient care, nutrition and fitness, and medical sciences.

Learn more at: https://shs.sheltonschools.org/departments_ classrooms/shelton_academies.