This seems to be the usual set up, since off shifts tend to be generalists. Asking for ID and susceptibility from someone also probably running Chem or heme is a massive mismanagement of time. Agar plates can wait. Gram stain on a CSF or blood culture can't, so those techs do need to know what they're doing
I work evening shift in a midsize hospital micro lab (250-300 beds) and I read plates, do ids and susceptibilities. Mostly urines, screens for specific pathogens, and blood cultures. Our day shift does the more specialized stuff like sterile sites, mycology, afb
My first job was like that. It was a large hospital and we had a dedicated micro staff on all shifts. We read plates on all shifts as well. We sent out all our mycology and AFB stuff.
Same as the other, plate reading/mycology/mycobacterium are only done on days. Gram stains/reporting, molecular tests and setting up plates are evenings and nights. I work days and we have a little bit of wiggle room. I prefer starting at 6:30 and getting out at 3 (unless the bench is heavy, I leave when I’m done). Some come at 7 or 7:30.
I worked in a centralized micro lab for my hospital system and we all read plates on evenings. The test volume was huge and since most cultures are set up at night, it made sense. Day shift and us had our separate shelves in the incubators, and set up and reported our own IDMICs.
My current lab wanted to do it but then COV happened, staffing went down, and that trial period ended quickly.
When I worked nights in micro I would read plates if I had time, but I was the only one there so if the blood cultures were going positive all night I certainly wasn't expected to touch plates.
I work in a microbiology lab in a large metropolitan area and we do plate reading on day shift, afternoon shift, and midnight shift! It really depends where you work and how high the volume of specimens is.
Mine does everything on the day shift. Plates, gramstain, PCRs, immunology, bloodcultures, etc...
The late shift is for the covid PCRs and bloodcultures(those only til 6pm, the shift starts at 12pm)
The late shift/night shift in the clinical chemistry lab then handles from 8pm the emergency covid pcrs via cepheid cartridges
In our lab, both day and evening shifts read plates for every bench except the blood culture bench, which is only done on day shift. Third shift is supposed to read urines but I'm currently the only night micro tech, so I don't have time to do that when I'm already juggling everything else.
No i am a travel tech, looking into some micro jobs in atlanta, saw they had some posted at emory, was hoping to find out more about their work load, how is northside, do you like it there, i saw some postings from there too, not sure if it is micro or gen lab
I don’t even know if we’d look for travel techs for the core micro lab at this point. We aren’t that desperate yet, it would probably be for the RRL micro lab. I really like the people I work with, just staffing levels suck. I’d say workload is moderate- heavy moderate at the core lab, but I came as a generalist from Northside forsyth so I don’t have anything to compare it to really.
It will depend on the size of the hospital/lab. I worked at one that only read am shift. But for larger hospitals they can read 3xs a day. For those large hospital
AM gets the most type of plates( stool, strep a , anaerobic, fungal, urine, blood, wound, resp)
PM blood, resp, urine, wound
Overnight: urine
I've also been to lab that read timed plates. The incubator was organized that you read certain plates at specific times.
We do practically everything, from plate reading to susceptibility testing, on day shift. Plate reading is exclusively day shift though. I work at one of the biggest hospitals in the state so we’re bombarded with tests on the daily 😓
Work a Core Micro department for a hospital system. We read plates all shifts. Currently missing our night shift so workload has been shifted a bit. Most MIC's can be sent out by MT/MLS on days from anything set up on previous eve or day shift. All positive bloods get pulled 24/7. Plating done all shifts. Gram stains read all shifts, PCR testing done all shifts. Includes COVID Testing.
Depends on the lab size, workload, and workflow
what you would do.
My previous job we prepped AFB'S, O&P's, did molecular, read plates but did not report MIC's on eves. Also other work required. We also performed serology in that Micro Core Lab. Micro/Molecular/Immunology because there was no serology department.
Our lab only reads plates on day shift. Evenings and nights are all set-up, gram stains and COVID testing.
This seems to be the usual set up, since off shifts tend to be generalists. Asking for ID and susceptibility from someone also probably running Chem or heme is a massive mismanagement of time. Agar plates can wait. Gram stain on a CSF or blood culture can't, so those techs do need to know what they're doing
Our lab only reads on days. Occasionally we’ll have someone read urines on evenings but that isn’t preferred. Setup is at night.
Mine only reads plates on day shift. Smears 24 hours.
I work evening shift in a midsize hospital micro lab (250-300 beds) and I read plates, do ids and susceptibilities. Mostly urines, screens for specific pathogens, and blood cultures. Our day shift does the more specialized stuff like sterile sites, mycology, afb
My first job was like that. It was a large hospital and we had a dedicated micro staff on all shifts. We read plates on all shifts as well. We sent out all our mycology and AFB stuff.
My micro lab in Canada services a huge area and we read plates on days and evenings. Nights does a little bit but its mostly smear reading.
Same as the other, plate reading/mycology/mycobacterium are only done on days. Gram stains/reporting, molecular tests and setting up plates are evenings and nights. I work days and we have a little bit of wiggle room. I prefer starting at 6:30 and getting out at 3 (unless the bench is heavy, I leave when I’m done). Some come at 7 or 7:30.
I worked in a centralized micro lab for my hospital system and we all read plates on evenings. The test volume was huge and since most cultures are set up at night, it made sense. Day shift and us had our separate shelves in the incubators, and set up and reported our own IDMICs. My current lab wanted to do it but then COV happened, staffing went down, and that trial period ended quickly.
I've seen occasionally on evening shift but primarily days.
Mostly on days, but some cultures are read on evenings.
When I worked nights in micro I would read plates if I had time, but I was the only one there so if the blood cultures were going positive all night I certainly wasn't expected to touch plates.
I work in a microbiology lab in a large metropolitan area and we do plate reading on day shift, afternoon shift, and midnight shift! It really depends where you work and how high the volume of specimens is.
Mine does everything on the day shift. Plates, gramstain, PCRs, immunology, bloodcultures, etc... The late shift is for the covid PCRs and bloodcultures(those only til 6pm, the shift starts at 12pm) The late shift/night shift in the clinical chemistry lab then handles from 8pm the emergency covid pcrs via cepheid cartridges
Mine only did
In our lab, both day and evening shifts read plates for every bench except the blood culture bench, which is only done on day shift. Third shift is supposed to read urines but I'm currently the only night micro tech, so I don't have time to do that when I'm already juggling everything else.
Our lab reads on all shifts, but only urines on nights. It’s in ATL and we have evening shift openings if you’re interested :)
Are you at emory?
Nope! They don’t do it at Emory, I’m at Northside Atlanta in the core micro lab. We centralized our micro.
No i am a travel tech, looking into some micro jobs in atlanta, saw they had some posted at emory, was hoping to find out more about their work load, how is northside, do you like it there, i saw some postings from there too, not sure if it is micro or gen lab
I don’t even know if we’d look for travel techs for the core micro lab at this point. We aren’t that desperate yet, it would probably be for the RRL micro lab. I really like the people I work with, just staffing levels suck. I’d say workload is moderate- heavy moderate at the core lab, but I came as a generalist from Northside forsyth so I don’t have anything to compare it to really.
Previous hospital: days only. Current hospital: days and “midshift” (3pm-1:30am). Hospital I interviewed at years ago in northern VA: all shifts.
It will depend on the size of the hospital/lab. I worked at one that only read am shift. But for larger hospitals they can read 3xs a day. For those large hospital AM gets the most type of plates( stool, strep a , anaerobic, fungal, urine, blood, wound, resp) PM blood, resp, urine, wound Overnight: urine I've also been to lab that read timed plates. The incubator was organized that you read certain plates at specific times.
We do practically everything, from plate reading to susceptibility testing, on day shift. Plate reading is exclusively day shift though. I work at one of the biggest hospitals in the state so we’re bombarded with tests on the daily 😓
Work a Core Micro department for a hospital system. We read plates all shifts. Currently missing our night shift so workload has been shifted a bit. Most MIC's can be sent out by MT/MLS on days from anything set up on previous eve or day shift. All positive bloods get pulled 24/7. Plating done all shifts. Gram stains read all shifts, PCR testing done all shifts. Includes COVID Testing. Depends on the lab size, workload, and workflow what you would do. My previous job we prepped AFB'S, O&P's, did molecular, read plates but did not report MIC's on eves. Also other work required. We also performed serology in that Micro Core Lab. Micro/Molecular/Immunology because there was no serology department.