On the Frontlines of Covid-19
The U of M’s Med Lab Sciences Program is educating a highly diverse group who test to determine if we’ve contracted the novel coronavirus.
Last January, Hannah George (B.S. ’19) started her first career job
as a medical laboratory scientist at the U of M’s Infectious Disease
Diagnostic Laboratory at Fairview M Health. She was excited to
use the skills she’d mastered at the University’s Medical Laboratory
Sciences Program to do microbiology testing for a number of infectious
diseases. Working nights, she read cultures and performed polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) tests, which amplify small sections of a person’s DNA to
find anything from a virus to a genetic disorder.
Little did George know that within a month of starting the job, she’d be
playing a key role in Minnesota’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
As part of her work testing patients for Covid-19, George logs whether
Fairview patients are symptomatic and then categorizes other important
information, such as whether or not they are scheduled for surgery or are
pregnant. She then performs PCR tests—currently considered the most
reliable Covid-19 test—to identify if a patient has the virus. “[At the start of
the pandemic] we were doing Covid testing basically our entire shifts,” she
says. “That put it into perspective how big and serious this is.”
The Medical Laboratory Sciences
Program was established in 1922 and is one
of the oldest programs of its kind in the
country. “We are the hidden health care
profession,” says Janice Conway-Klaassen,
associate professor and director, who
notes that laboratory scientists make
up the third largest cohort of medical
professionals after doctors and nurses.
“Most people don’t know who does their
laboratory testing.”
The degree is an upper division undergraduate program. For the first two years,
students take courses that are similar to
those for a biology degree. The last four
semesters focus on courses specific to the
field. In addition, the degree requires an
extra semester in clinical training in a hospital or research laboratory to get hands-on experience processing specimens.
Students—there are usually between 40
and 45 in each class—take a national certification exam after graduation. In addition,
the classes are highly racially diverse: For
each of the past three years, 42 percent
of students in each cohort have identified
as Black, Indigenous, or people of color
(BIPOC).
The real-life training makes graduates
highly employable, especially in Minnesota,
where there is a shortage of laboratory
scientists. “The program coordinates your
clinical rotations at a hospital doing the
work while you are still a student,” says
Kylie Labog (B.S. ’18), who moved to the
Twin Cities to attend the program after
graduating from the University of San
Diego. “That appealed to me because
internships and clinical rotations were very
competitive and hard to get into.”
Today, Labog works as a medical technologist in an infectious disease lab at the
Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute,
which is part of the Hennepin Healthcare
System. Before Covid-19, she implemented
a respiratory panel that tests for 15 types of
viruses—from flu strains to the rhinovirus.
Now, she’s also researching the effectiveness of different Covid-19 tests and assays.
Conway-Klaasen says this program is
especially popular with first-generation
college students. This year, the program
received a $3.25 million grant from the
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to provide scholarships for
disadvantaged students. Students also
use their degrees and jobs as stepping stones to—and a way to finance—medical
school, veterinary school, nursing school,
or dental school.
“We’re not seeing the patient face to face, but we may be treating or informing the treatment of 700 or 800 patients a day,” says Conway-Klaassen. “How important and critical is that to the health and well-being of the population? Laboratory scientists are critical to the proper treatment, diagnosis, and management of patients on an everyday basis. If laboratory testing is not accurate and timely, then physicians are making decisions that are ill-informed.”