My Job

Picture of me in my laboratory coat

Having a single job in Nigeria especially as a youth is like identifying as a clown.

Apart from having a main professional job, having one or more other jobs (popularly called side hustles) will keep you sane and your financial life in check.

So, today I choose to talk about my job as a medical laboratory scientist.

Firstly, this theme had me reminisce over when I was an undergraduate.

That was about seven years ago.

That time I was hell-bent on studying medicine and surgery in a medical school but as Nigerian university have it, I was “thrown” to medical laboratory science department.

By saying “thrown”, I mean I didn’t apply to study the course but since my cumulative aggregate didn’t meet up with medicine and surgery’s cutoff mark so I was admitted to study the nearest course to it which my aggregate met.

I didn’t know anything about medical laboratory science and I hated that I had no idea about it but getting admission into a medical school in Nigeria is not so easy so I couldn’t help but just accept and give it a try plus I didn’t want to stay at home for another one year.

Medical laboratory science (MLS) is the health profession that is involved with diagnosis and treatment of diseases through the analyses on blood, tissues, and bodily fluids including urine, semen, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid, endocervical and other biological specimens.

This profession consists four basic branches.

The chemical pathology and immunology.

The hematology and blood transfusion science.

The histopathology and cytopathology.

The medical microbiology and Parasitology.

During my studies as an undergraduate, I fell in love with this profession and I got to know so many things including greater opportunities associated with it.

The bench aspect, the academics, the research and even the business aspect.
Bench means you get to do the routine work in the laboratory only, academics means you get to become a lecturer even a professor, in research, you get to study deeper and also carry out theses on early detection of infections and its control, you get to learn and come up with new ways of diagnosis and treatments while the business aspect entails the production and trading of raw materials and consumables pertaining to the medical laboratory at large.

A picture of me working in the medical microbiology and parasitology department

Fast forward to now when I started working as a medical laboratory science intern. It’s been two months into it and the only remark I have is that this profession is lovely and I’m so glad I’m in it.

I get to analyze a variety of biological specimens to locate and identify infectious microorganisms in them.

I also get to interpret test results to assist in diagnosis and treatments to illness.

I love my job because with my participation in the health care industry, I get to make life a better place for everyone.

Imagine a world where ;
..there’s no diagnosis to illness.

.. there’s no research about infections, quick diagnosis to epidemics and crises.

..there’s no testing for donor-patient compatibility before transfusing blood.

..Pregnant women die in the delivery room(or during C-section) because of blood transfusion reactions.

.. blood of an HIV (or other diseases) infected person is transfused into a patient in need of urgent blood.

..babies die cos of crises that could be resolved with vaccines.

.. two AS couples get married without knowing their genotypes and gave birth to SS children.

.. a wife gets blamed for not getting pregnant when the fault is actually from the husband’s infertility and vice versa.

..there’s no control to infectious diseases.

And the list goes on..

In fact, I can’t imagine what the world would be like without medical laboratory scientists.

I am indeed a proud medical laboratory scientist.

A random picture of me at work

Thank you for reading about my job.