Clinical Laboratory Scientist

100 LCMC Health; Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 65,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

LCMC Health’s Lakeside Hospital in Metairie, LA, seeks a Clinical Laboratory Scientist to advance patient care through precise lab testing and data reporting. You will contribute to bacteriology, serology, and blood bank processes, working as part of a dedicated laboratory team.

You will operate and maintain instruments, perform critical analyses, and ensure safety and quality across all specimens. This role emphasizes accuracy, reliability, and teamwork in a high-stakes clinical setting.

Qualifications

• Clinical Lab Generalist license required (LA).
• Experience in hospital/laboratory safety and quality control is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Label, accession and distribute specimens ensuring patient ID integrity.
• Inoculate specimens on appropriate media from body sites.
• Initiate orders for blood and blood components as needed.
• Follow hospital and lab safety and infection control policies.
• Operate, calibrate and maintain clinical lab instruments.
• Prepare gram stains and other wet/dry preparations.
• Perform routine procedures including ABORH typing, antibody detection and serology.
• Prepare blood components using aseptic technique.
• Document QC results and investigate results outside established limits.

Education

Clinical Lab Generalist licensed by Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners as CLG or CLS

Job description

Your job is more than a job. As a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, you have the uncanny ability to look for that needle in the haystack that may lead to cracking medical mysteries. You’re not looking to be in the limelight, but rather to shed some light on health problems and diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and genetic abnormalities. Blood samples or body fluid specimens can hold the answers to research or recovery, so you take a detailed approach to performing clinical laboratory testing, evaluating and reporting data. And while you may never actually meet your patients personally, you still feel a connection to a real person that may benefit from your love of science and research. There’s nobody like you and that’s why we’d love to have you be a part of our crack team of scientific sleuths. Your experiences, your knowledge, your skills, your empathy, your compassion, your personality, all of it adds up to you. And we’re excited to get to know you and find out what you’ll bring to this vital scientific research role.

Your Everyday Ensure specimens received by the laboratory are acceptable for testing by applying the appropriate criteria and change or prepare reagents, controls as necessary and records such in log.

• Label, accession and distribute specimens so that integrity of patient identification is maintained throughout processing and inoculate specimens from all areas of the body on appropriate media.
• Initiate orders for blood and/or blood components from the appropriate blood supplier.
• Follow hospital/laboratory safety and infection control policies and report variances to section supervisors as they occur.
• Determine appropriateness of manual methods, micro-methods, back-up procedures and initiate such procedures.
• Use computer system to compare patient results to previous results during the same encounter and investigate discrepancies and report test results within established departmental turn-around times after verifying documentation is complete and accurate.
• Prepare and interpret gram stains and other wet and dry preparations for bacteriology and parasitology.
• Perform all routine procedures including, but not limited to, ABORH typing and retesting, antibody detection and identification, compatibility testing and serology procedures.
• Prepare blood components while maintaining aseptic technique and proper storage.
• Evaluate serological reactivity to assist with antibody identification and crossmatch incompatibilities.
• Follow universal precautions at all times when dealing with blood or body fluids and disinfect counter tops at the end of the shift with appropriate cleaner.
• Operate, calibrate, conduct performance checks, and maintain any clinical laboratory instrument or equipment after orientation, troubleshoot basic instrument malfunctions, and document in the appropriate action log.
• Determine when an instrument’s service representative should be contacted for assistance.
• Analyze quality control material for each procedure, record values according to section policy, and report to technical supervisor when results are outside established limits.
• Perform comparison studies of precision, accuracy and linearity on new or existing procedures, record proficiency surveys, and route form and reagent quality control as specified in the quality control manuals.
• Assist in the clinical orientation of new or less skilled laboratory personnel as requested by the section Supervisor.
• Assures proper packaging and disposal of waste chemicals.
• Maintain proper documentation (log) of generated waste.
• Perform order or result entry (manual or computerized) and reviews information for accuracy before verification.
• Document critical call value notification, duplicate checking, date and time of performance, technologist initials and expected age related “normal” values on all down-time reports as appropriate.
• Check instruments and benches assigned for appropriate reagent and supply levels and replenishes and notify appropriate person of low inventory items or of any out-of-date reagents contaminated or otherwise unacceptable, record receipt of supplies and reagents, properly initialing and dating the inventory items at receipt, time put into use and expiration, and ensure adequate inventory levels are available for incoming shifts.
• Receive tissue specimens from surgery, autopsy and the nursing floors, perform proper processing and preservation of tissue specimens, comply with proper specimen storage and preservation of all other non-tissue specimens for non-core laboratory.
• Prepare necessary reagents and collection supplies for assisting with bone marrow aspirations according to physician orders, assist physicians in the procurement of bone marrow specimens, perform special stains and follow protocols as appropriate.

The Must-Haves Minimum

Clinical Lab Generalist licensed by Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners as CLG or CLS

WORK SHIFT: Variable Hours (United States of America)

Variable Hours (United States of America)

LCMC Health is a community. Our people make health happen. While our NOLA roots run deep, our branches are the vessels that carry our mission of bringing the best possible care to every person and parish in Louisiana and beyond and put a little more heart and soul into healthcare along the way. Celebrating authenticity, originality, equity, inclusion and a little “come on in” attitude is the foundation of LCMC Health’s culture of everyday extraordinary Lakeside Hospital has a heritage rooted in extraordinary care for women and babies, while evolving to meet the healthcare needs of the whole family. As an essential part of LCMC Health’s incredible community of care, Lakeside Hospital brings a new level of expert care by going the extra mile, treating the whole patient and not just a condition. Learn more about Lakeside Hospital and our expanding access to comprehensive and specialty healthcare services in Metairie.

Your extras

• Deliver healthcare with heart.
• Give people a reason to smile.
• Put a little love in your work.
• Be honest and real, but with compassion.
• Bring some lagniappe into everything you do.
• Forget one‑size‑fits‑all, think one‑of‑a‑kind care.
• See opportunities, not problems – it’s all about perspective.
• Cheerlead ideas, differences, and each other.
• Love what makes you, you - because we do.

You are welcome here.

LCMC Health is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The above job summary is intended to describe the general nature and level of the work being performed by people assigned to this work. This is not an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities. LCMC Health reserves the right to amend and change responsibilities to meet organizational needs as necessary.

Simple things make the difference.

About LCMC Health One‑of‑a‑kind care comes from one‑of‑a‑kind people. At LCMC Health, our people are the magic ingredient that makes our care so extra‑extraordinary. We are compassionate, driven, and dedicated to bringing a little something extra to healthcare and to the people of New Orleans and beyond. If you’re the kind of person who believes that our community deserves the best and that healthcare needs a little more heart, we want you to be a part of our family. From medical roles to administrative positions, every person on our team plays a part in our mission: to provide health, care, and education beyond extraordinary. Let’s make every day extraordinary, together.