PVH Celebrates Laboratory Professional Week
 “It’s really gross,” said Alyssa Stevens as she looked into the Petri dish and examined the results of her “Dirty Money” test. Alyssa, who plans to participate in a school science fair next month, had approached the Penobscot Valley Hospital Laboratory about helping her explore how bacteria and other nasty things might grow on the money we touch every day. The tests focused on two 1-dollar bills and two quarters.
“I thought the quarters would be dirtier because of all the crevices,” said Alyssa. “But the tests showed the worst contamination was on one of the two 1-dollar bills.”
“I told Alyssa I expected the dollar bills to foster more growth than the coins,” said PVH Lab Technologist Luann McPhail. “That’s because of the fibrous qualities of the dollar bills and their greater surface area. I really enjoyed helping out Alyssa and learning along with her.”
 Alyssa is a 6th grader at Mount Jefferson Junior High School. Her cousin is a biologist, and Alyssa is very interested in pursing a career in science.
Helping local students with projects is just one of the many ways the PVH Lab is reaching out to the local community and enticing young people into the field. Laboratory Director Scott Warner says, “It’s exciting to see lab techs sharing their knowledge and giving back to the community.” Warner says the PVH lab has state-of-the-art equipment and does a lot of the diagnostic testing right in-house. “It’s a full-service lab with an experienced staff.”
This is National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week, which was created to celebrate the contributions of lab workers in the medical community and to recognize their indispensable work on behalf of patients.
Lab work is a foundational element of evidence-based medicine and enables healthcare workers to perform their jobs more successfully. Even though it’s fascinating work, nearly 50% of the medical labs in the U.S. report staffing shortages.
The U. S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 13,800 medical laboratory professionals will be needed each year through 2012 just to fill vacant positions. Unfortunately, only 4,000 individuals are graduating in these fields each year. Allied health schools are graduating 30 percent fewer students than ten years ago and 56 percent fewer students than 20 years ago
“It’s so neat to get young people like Alyssa excited about the diagnostic part of medicine,” says Warner. “We can help them see what a huge part science plays in patient care and show them the wide range of careers they can explore in this field.”
For information on this and other news from PVH,
contact Allison Bankston at 207-794-7124 or abankston@pvhme.org
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