April 9, 2003
Contact:
Jennifer Kurczek
Community Relations Director
Berlin Memorial Hospital celebrates National Medical Laboratory Week
by offering free blood-typing to community
To celebrate National Medical Laboratory Week (NMLW), April 20-26th, the lab staff at Berlin Memorial Hospital is offering free blood-typing to the general public.
Being aware of your blood-type can provide critical information in the event of an urgent need for blood, such as following an accident, or if planning to give blood.
Community members are invited to stop by the Berlin Memorial Hospital Lab from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22nd or 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 24th for a complimentary finger-stick that will enable lab staff to identify their blood type.
With the theme “Exceptional People, Exceptional Work,” NMLW is a special recognition week that honors the more than 280,000 medical laboratory professionals in the US who perform and interpret laboratory tests that save lives and keep people healthy.
The lab at Berlin Memorial Hospital, which is operates 24 hours a day, is served by 23 lab professionals who provide a critical service to various hospital departments, as well as other Community Health Network divisions, such as physician clinics, Juliette Manor nursing home, Proformance Occupational Health and CHN Home Care.
“As laboratory staff, we have to be painstakingly meticulous in performing our jobs to provide dependable answers to your family physicians,” said Lois Piper, MT, manager of the Berlin Memorial Hospital Laboratory. “Results of laboratory tests often identify the presence of disease in its earliest stages, when the possibilities of a cure are greatest and when treatment is least costly.”
Using state-of-the-art technology and instrumentation, laboratory professionals help to prevent disease by detecting unknown health problems and by aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of existing conditions by giving accurate, timely test results.
Medical laboratory professionals represent a variety of specialties, including pathologists, medical technologists, clinical laboratory scientists, medical laboratory technicians, histotechnologists, histologic technicians, cytotechnologists, cytopathologists, phlebotomy technicians, clinical chemists, microbiologists, laboratory managers, and medical educators.
Within the laboratory, these highly educated and experienced medical laboratory professionals may work in chemistry, serology, hematology, cytology, microbiology, immunology, coagulation, histology, urinalysis, molecular biology, or the blood bank.
Berlin Memorial Hospital is a member of Community Health Network, a continuum of healthcare services which also includes CHN Home Care, Juliette Manor, Juliette Terrace, Partners Family Pharmacy, Proformance Fitness & Rehabilitation, Proformance Workplace Services, and the CHN Medical Group, consisting of more than 110 multi-specialty providers serving nearly 20 community clinics. Community Health Network is further affiliated with Wild Rose Community Memorial Hospital