Medical Foundation Employees... Rock Your Pride!

Coming up the week of April 21 – 25, Medical Foundation employees will be celebrating. Yes, some will celebrate Dyngus Day, maybe even a birthday or two.  But the focus of the celebration will be – Lab Week.

During Lab Week, laboratories around the United States will thank their laboratory professionals and pathologists for the vital role they play in health care.

You see, our phlebotomists, MTs, MLTs and Pathologists are the “behind the scene players” who quietly perform critical laboratory testing on a daily basis.

When patients are in the hospital, they look to their physicians and hospital caregivers to make them feel better. And for that to happen, the physician often orders laboratory testing that gives clues to what ails the patient. In approximately 70% of cases, physicians rely on laboratory testing to make a diagnosis. 

Often, the pathologist works directly with local physicians to determine the best care for patients. For example, our pathologists meet with a tumor board weekly to discuss cancer cases with local oncologists.

Foundation employees specialize in various departments such as determining the presence of infectious diseases in Microbiology or testing lifesaving units of blood in the blood bank.  There’s also the Molecular Pathology/ Flow Cytometry Department where HIV testing is completed and testing for gene mutations.  Four floors of our Central Laboratory building are dedicated to patient testing, which doesn’t even include our satellite labs. Each year, The Foundation performs over 6 million tests, 50,000 Surigical Pathology cases and 93,500 pap smears. Again, these are just a few of the tests performed, but will hopefully give you some perspective.

The laboratory process is one many patients don’t think about.  Instead, it’s a mysterious phenomenon where blood is drawn and the results magically appear.  In reality, we have couriers, specimen processors, and many professionals behind the scenes ensuring that your specimen is cared for and that results are available as soon as possible.

So this year, The Medical Foundation employees will celebrate! They’ll be served a great lab week luncheon on Wednesday, bond with retirees on Tuesday and wear their “Rock Your Pride” t-shirts on Friday.

They’re lab employees … and they get results!