Number: ……………
Name of rotation: Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital
Period: 01-12-2018 to 28-02-2019 (6 weeks)
Learning objectives
- Familiarity with manual bench assays
- Becoming a functional member of the Chemical Pathology Department.
- Understanding overtime duties in the laboratory and expectations of registrars on a day-to-day basis.
- Interpretation and evaluation of investigations such as electrophoresis.
Reflection on completion of rotation.
What has been learnt?
- The laboratory is a well organised structure that functions with a standard operating procedure to guide the laboratory personnel.
- The importance of having good laboratory practise.
- The methods employed to diagnose biochemical derangement can be simple such as running a TLC plate or require sophisticated equipment such as a GC-MS.
- The requirements of a small laboratory as compared to a large volume laboratory
- The importance of forming and maintaining a good relationship with lab personnel.
- The great responsibility that comes with the permissions that registrars have. This is with regards to access to patient information and the ability to alter the final results that clinicians have access to.
What remains to be learnt?
- I still have to learn different techniques of performing investigations (e.g. chromatography vs spectrophotometry).
- Types of interferences and how this can affect analytes and thus the results.
- Becoming comfortable with interpretation of electrophoretic gels.
- Bridging the gap between clinicians and laboratory staff, seeking to encourage a relationship between the two.
- Obtaining a true grasp of what a Chemical Pathologist is and the functions that they perform.
This page reviewed by …………………………………….……on …….………(date)
Signature of reviewer: ………………………………….
