Celebrating the start of spring break with a trip to historical Fort Langley
Spring break is here! Well, it’s halfway over, but still a few more days of sleeping in. I’m lucky this year since we’re done pretty much all of our midterms before the break (only 1 more in a few weeks), and there are no big projects / assignments to be done either. I remember last year in level 1 we had a few group projects that needed to be done during the spring break. Anyway, last week was quite brutal with multiple midterms and skills assessments, so this week I’ve been catching up on lots of sleep and relaxation. Since this term is officially halfway done with 10 more weeks of school to go, I thought I’d recap on how the first half of level 3 went.
Compared to last term (level 2) where I felt like I was always rushed and lacking time, this term was quite slow in the beginning. We were more comfortable with how the labs are run and the do’s and don’ts in the lab, so I think everyone took it easy. The material in the beginning of the term was also quite manageable and the instructors taught at a reasonable pace. Unlike last term where we had less than 4 months to learn the theory and get acquainted to the labs, this term we have 5 months to learn new material without having to adjust to new situations. But things started to pick up by February, and soon the amount of work started to snowball. I’d say everyone in the program was pretty stressed out in the past few weeks from the sheer amount of studying and the lack of time, so this spring break is very much needed.
One of the new things this term is having 4-hour labs for Transfusion Science and Molecular Diagnostic Techniques. Because these are 4 hours long, we don’t have them every week. In fact, we have fewer molecular labs this term and instead of learning a lot of new techniques in the lab, we have one big group project related to different diseases and the molecular testing that can be done to diagnose them. For example, my group’s project is on alpha thalassemia and its diagnosis using multiplex PCR (polymerase chain reaction).
Another lab that is different this term is Microbiology. Whereas last term we were still learning about the different pathogens that are encountered in the clinical labs (e.g. E. coli, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus), this term we are learning about them from the perspective of human body sites. This makes it more relevant to what we will see in the real labs, but also more challenging because we have to apply our knowledge about the microbes to real clinical situations.
With only 2.5 months left in this term, I do feel a bit nervous about starting the real practicum, since it feels like we haven’t learned everything there is to know about working in clinical labs. I never really thought about it before but now I’m realizing that in the classroom and labs we’re just learning the basic things necessary to get us ready for practicum, and the bulk of the hands-on learning will be during that practicum period. It’s not a bad thing though since I learn better by doing things (and making mistakes). Hopefully I’ll somehow be ready for the practicum when the time comes!