Laboratory Professionals at the Regional Medical Center “Get Results” with Employee Pledge Drive During Lab Week
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| In observation of National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, the RMC Laboratory team promoted an internal blood drive, and some 45 employees pledged to donate a unit of blood during the week. From left are Laboratory and Blood Assurance staff members, Tabitha Felder, Jennifer King and Paulette Ransom. |
Among the many unsung heroes in healthcare are the pathologists and laboratory technologists and technicians, numbering some 70, at the Regional Medical Center and its outpatient laboratories.
In observation of National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, the RMC lab team promoted an internal blood drive, and 45 employees pledged to donate a unit of blood during the upcoming year. “This is one of the many ways our excellent team gets results,” commented Gary Ferguson, RMC’s Laboratory Director, who explained that this year’s theme for National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week was “Laboratory Professionals Get Results.”
Using state-of-the-art technology, instrumentation and expertise, laboratory professionals help to prevent disease by detecting unknown health problems and by aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of existing conditions by giving accurate, timely test results. Many laboratory tests will identify the presence of disease in its earliest stages, when the possibilities of a cure are greatest and when treatment is most effective and least costly.
“Generally, laboratory test results comprise an estimated 70% of the average patient’s medical records,” said Ferguson. “At RMC, over a million such tests are performed annually, while operating under stringent regulatory guidelines aimed at ensuring accuracy and quality in every test result produced.”
"We are proud of the work we do," said Ferguson, "and we have to be painstakingly meticulous in performing our jobs to provide dependable answers to your family’s physicians."
Medical laboratory professionals at RMC include pathologists, medical technologists, medical laboratory technicians, histotechnologists, cytotechnologists and phlebotomy technicians; these highly educated and experienced medical laboratory professionals work in chemistry, hematology, cytology, microbiology, histology and transfusion services.
There are approximately 300,000 practitioners of clinical laboratory science in the U.S. Since the development of this career group in the 1920s, the clinical laboratory science professional has played an increasingly vital role in the diagnosis and prevention of disease. Today, the clinical laboratorian is a key member of a healthcare team.
For more information about Laboratory services at the Regional Medical Center, call Gary Ferguson at 395-2408. |