By Giselle Kowalski
As the pandemic surges on, the public’s grasp on who to listen to when it comes to COVID19 [SARSCoV2 virus] procedures and scientifically accurate information wavers between absolute confidence and complete distrust in public health professionals.
According to The New York Times, around 23,000 new cases are reported in Texas per week. Since Gov. Greg Abbott’s order in May to prohibit government mask mandates, universities across the state have struggled to contain cases throughout their campuses.
A look in to the lab: filled with microscopes, beakers, slides and chemicals, the tools for discovery are scattered about. 
Left over from past classes, you can find remanence of the work being done by the students in the program, finishing up projects and research before the holidays. 
Lined along the wall are each students’ lab coats. Labeled by name and hung right by the door, the coats wait for their rightful owner to make its way into the lab.
Before the school year began, President Trauth sent out an email urging students to continue to wear a mask in buildings and on campus to minimize infection rate. However, as students pass from class to class across the Quad, the masks come off in the sweltering heat.
“There has been a hodgepodge of things happening over the last 18 months,” says Dr. Rodney E. Rohde, Chair of the Clinical Laboratory Science (CLS) Program at Texas State and Associate Director of the Translational Health Research Center. “As medical laboratory and public health professionals, we weren’t involved enough, we didn’t have enough people in the right place. We didn’t have people in the highest levels of government who understood medical laboratory testing.”
Dr. Rohde is a credentialed specialist in virology, microbiology and molecular diagnostics with the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP) in medical (clinical) laboratory testing. In other words, he is an expert in viruses and how they work. Additionally, whenever someone is taking a specimen (e.g. blood, urine, saliva samples), performing a COVID19 test or the like, laboratory professionals like Rohde are the people that test and validate the results.
In a recent article by The Conversation, data shows that there are only around 300,000 medical laboratory professionals practicing in the United States, with a population reaching above 330 million in the country. To make matters more pressing, these professionals are starting to retire early, especially since the onslaught of the pandemic. Over worked and understaffed, many health professionals across the U.S. are struggling to continue under an ongoing and stressful few years.
Programs across the country like the Texas State CLS one are educating and training students to walk in the footsteps of those like Dr. Rohde and his colleagues in order to put more willing, able, and smart individuals in laboratories to continue to research and explore this novel virus and any others that may evolve in the future. In order to prepare more students for a career in the CLS program, there’s a need to raise awareness of programs like this one and others that can improve public health literacy.
From top to bottom: juniors Bailey Nichols, Yemi Yelima, and Alyssa Canale inspecting slides.
A good example of a need for health literacy is the complex nuance of COVID19 testing. Take-at-home COVID tests are a convenient and readily available option for those that can afford a $23.99 testing kit at Walgreens. There is no need to make an appointment, take time off or wait for results and it is a great option for those that have school-aged kids that are not able to vaccinate. These at home tests can help a family with the decision whether to keep a child at home if they’re sick and possible prevent spreading COVID19 to Johnny’s 2nd grade class, and his grandparents, and his neighbors, and his teacher. On the other hand, the validity of the result is questionable to many virologists and public health officials. With variables like human error (sampling), false positives and negatives, one must be careful to put full trust in such testing.
“People think that ‘a test is a test is a test is a test,” said Dr. Rohde. “And that is absolutely not the case.”
While at-home testing is a great opportunity, it is usually what is referred to as “waived testing.” In other words, anyone can do it and get a result, like a pregnancy test, and waived tests are FDA approved. However, tests done in medical laboratories are moderate to high complexity, the gold standard, with more specificity and sensitivity to get an accurate result.
“The at home testing has a purpose” Rohde said. “At-home testing and other rapid tests are often what we call a ‘screening test,’ throwing a wide net and trying to find sporadic positives that may need to be confirmed. You should still go to your physician who can help ensure that the proper sample is taken and that a medical laboratory can work to get a really strong, high complexity test to follow that up.” At-home testing can be a double-edged sword in the medical world, but it is opening up a whole new realm for people to take symptoms more seriously and to prioritize their own health and the safety of others. Rapid antigen testing definitely has a place but one must understand the nuances of these types of tests. Medical laboratory professionals are the ones who can provide that type of understanding for the 13 billion laboratory tests performed each year that provide critical life-saving information for physicians and others to make approximately two out of three medical decisions.
While the pandemic has seemed to become a political problem rather than a public health issue, there is wide agreement in the medical community to the benefit of information being published for all to read.
“I feel like with coronavirus people know a lot more than they did before,” said senior biology major Sierra San Roman. “Now so many regular people know how the vaccine works compared to before.”
There is still a lot to be done and more information to be gathered. Trust is earned, and lately, trust has eroded. According to a recent Gallup survey, American’s confidence in the medical system has dropped by 7% in 2021 versus in 2020.
The goal of people like Dr. Rohde and students in the Clinical Laboratory Science Program is to be up front about what specialists know and what they don’t. With a virus that is constantly changing and mutating, Dr. Rohde says, communication and transparency should be the priority.
I and our CLS Program, our students and faculty, and our alumni / professionals THANK YOU for this opportunity to share our story. Our major and our profession is an Amazing career path that junior high, high school, university and other students need to be aware of as a wonderful lifetime profession in healthcare. BUT, it is critical that students learn about us as early as possible because there are specific prerequisite courses that are needed as well as the application process these programs. Please feel free to reach out to our program and others, as well as visit our website which is linked in the article. As Giselle writes, we NEED professionals as we have severe shortages in the medical and public health laboratories across the U.S. Our graduates are employed at a 100% rate within 3 months of graduation (often before graduation), as well as have a 95% rolling 3-year average on our national MLS (ASCP) credential exam. Join us and share our story with others interested in becoming an investigative medical laboratory detective. We are the experts in ALL areas of the medical and public health laboratory – hematology, medical microbiology, clinical chemistry, immunohematology (blood bank), molecular diagnostics, quality control / assurance, and immunological /serological testing!
Excellent attention to the value Laboratory Medicine brings to patient care – Dr Rodney E Rohde never ever disappoints with his objective focus on scientific facts.
Unfortunately the science behind Covid testing and the success of Warp Speed vaccinations became political tools in media.
Science earns trust when the behind the scenes medical laboratory scientists in the trenches who perform and manage the highly regulated quality standards of laboratory testing are brought to the forefront for appropriate clarification of utilization.
Thank you for sharing this media attention for public awareness and especially for continuing to graduate such highly qualified and much needed medical laboratory scientists.
My most recent article – Creative Commons article for REPUBLISHING.
Hope you are well!
RR
Nearly every time Americans turn on the radio or television, we’re reminded of the dire circumstances health care professionals have been enduring throughout the pandemic: doctors and nurses facing unprecedented levels of stress and burnout, the difficult decisions made when triage care is needed and the heartache of treating COVID-19 patients, many of whom die in ICUs without loved ones by their sides. Rarely, though, do we get a glimpse into the world of the medical laboratory professionals who labor in the background but who are, in many ways, the beating heart of the U.S. health care system.
So when I received an email from Rodney E. Rohde, a professor of clinical laboratory science at Texas State University, on a Sunday over the holidays, pitching a story about the dangerous levels of staffing shortages in the medical laboratory field, it stopped me in my tracks – even in the grocery store.
In his resulting story, Rohde writes about how laboratory professionals in his field are being overwhelmed by a convergence of factors, from burnout and staffing shortages to COVID-19 infections keeping workers away from their jobs and preventing other personnel from taking time off. And with the omicron variant leading to record-breaking COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, Rohde explains how the problem has grown far worse.
https://theconversation.com/the-omicron-variant-is-deepening-severe-staffing-shortages-in-medical-laboratories-across-the-us-174459