Level 3 is finally over! The past 1.5 years at BCIT went by so quickly, even though it didn’t feel that way most of the time. Now that the school portion of my program is over, there is only the practicum part left. It starts in July, so I have a little over a month of a break to rest my brain from too much studying as well as prepare for the practicum itself. I’m excited but also nervous since everybody who has gone through it keeps saying that it’s a “10-month-long job interview”.
I have a tentative practicum schedule and how it works at St. Paul’s is the students rotate between the different departments in the lab for 6 or 10 weeks straight depending on the department. I will be starting in the Anatomical Pathology department for 6 weeks, and there are 2 of my classmates doing the same rotation as me, though I think we’ll be assigned to different benches instead of doing the same things together.
I’m not sure what the exact working hours will be like during practicum, but from what I’ve heard the day shifts are around 7 AM – 3 PM. We’ll also be doing 2 weeks of evening shifts (no graveyard, thankfully) as well as 2 weeks of Chemistry at Mount Saint Joseph Hospital, which is under the same health organization as St. Paul’s.
During the practicum, our progress will be tracked through an online software and the goal is to pass all the competencies by the time we are done practicum. This will let us graduate and write the CSMLS exam, which is required before we could officially become MLTs.
Other than working at our practicum sites, we will also be enrolled in an online course called Integrative Medical Laboratory Studies. This course will support us during practicum, and I think we’ll have assignments related to working within the clinical lab as well as being part of the health care profession.
I haven’t thought too much about how I will prepare for practicum, but I think I might refresh my knowledge of Histology to get ready for my first rotation. I’ll also have to buy more scrubs to wear in the lab. But for now, I’m going to enjoy my time off and get school out of my mind. Hopefully the weather in Vancouver will be more summer-like soon!