It just recently struck me that in the lab, we use the phrase "out of control" in a different way than the rest of the world. In order to ensure that all of our lab tests are valid, we spend a large portion of our time running QC (quality control). Quality control is a pretty complicated process involving various biomedical supply companies, charts, statistics, correlation with other labs, and daily testing. Every machine and manual test must be "in control" in order for test results to be released.
Running QC for the chemistry department is very different from running QC in the micro department. In chemistry, we place samples with known values for each test onto the instrument and run them as we would a patient sample. If a chemistry control sample is "in control", the test result will fall within two standard deviations of the average value (the sample has been tested over and over again to establish this average before it even arrives in our lab). In microbiology (the bacteria department), we have a variety of control organisms. These bacteria are streaked to agar plates, and run through the machines used for testing to ensure that no contamination occurs during any step of the process. A false positive can be just as dangerous as a false negative when it comes to hospital testing!
If any of these QC processes fail, the instrument or sample is declared to be "out of control!" It is not uncommon to hear this phrase used daily around the lab to describe one machine or another that is misbehaving, or requiring calibration or maintenance; I find it humorous to imagine listening with a non-scientist ear. What would you think if you heard the scientists casually mentioning that something was out of control in the laboratory?
I love my career, and I am so excited to start working in my full, graduated capacity in just over a month! I have recently realized that even my husband has NO IDEA what it is that I do. So I am going to attempt to explain it in a series of "day in the life" posts. I will take you through a typical day in each specialty of the laboratory, including the priority lab where we do a bit of everything.
Stay tuned for those posts in the next few weeks!! I hope you will enjoy your laboratory adventure.
Now, to change the subject completely, here are some photos of my recent weekend in Seattle! I was lucky enough to have a 3.5 day weekend for the Memorial Day holiday. Since Scott didn't, I took a little trip up to Seattle, Washington to spend the weekend with my longtime friend, Laura Tuck. Laura recently graduated, landed a fantastic job in Seattle, and moved into a new apartment in Capitol Hill. Between that and my birthday this week, we had lots to celebrate! We wandered the city streets, canoed on Lake Washington, ate fancy food, not-so-fancy food, watched movies, shopped, and chatted until the wee hours. These are the pictures I took on our Canoeing adventure on Lake Washington! What an interesting experience to go out on a lake that goes right under a main highway, with construction equipment nearby, large buildings on the skyline, large boats passing in the shipping channel, and everything else that you could expect from an urban canoeing trip.
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