LifeSouth Community Blood Centers’ Newberry Road location in Gainesville is more than a corporate headquarters for its operations in Florida, Georgia and Alabama. It’s also a classroom for a few special students.Since 2006, LifeSouth has overseen a program for college grads with degrees in science fields, giving them special training to become the state-licensed clinical laboratory technologists who do the important work behind the scenes in LifeSouth’s labs.
LifeSouth President and CEO Nancy Eckert, who got her start in the business as a medical technologist, said the program was started out of necessity.
“Need, 100 percent need, and that’s not going away,” Eckert explained.
Eckert said that as laboratories became more automated, some thought labs would need fewer techs, and many of the schools that offered the specialized training closed.
“It was just the opposite,” she said. “As things got more sophisticated, you needed more training. We couldn’t stay open without med techs.”
Laboratory Services Supervisor Jake Joye was in the first class in 2006. He has a degree in zoology from the University of Florida, and after teaching high school science for three years, he was looking for a change. Joye started at LifeSouth working as a donor recruiter in his hometown of Lake City.
“It’s very thorough, very in-depth,” he said of the training.
While he had the people skills to be successful working day-to-day with donors, he loved being behind the scenes working with the science of blood donation.
“This is just far more interesting,” he said.
“I know every day when I come to work it
will be a challenge and it will be fulfilling.”
Laboratory Services Supervisor Jessica Drouillard started with the program in 2008. She has a degree in chemistry from UF and had been searching online for chemistry laboratory jobs, finding many but none that fit her qualifications. When she stopped by LifeSouth to donate blood one day, she noticed the laboratory license hanging on the wall, and it got her thinking. She went home and plugged the words “LifeSouth laboratory” into her job search, and an opening for “clinical laboratory technologist student” popped up.
“It was stupid luck,” she said.
It was also a big surprise. While she had been a long-time blood donor, she didn’t understand all of the sophisticated science that was required to test the blood, assure its quality, and match special patients and donors.
“I see that same look of shock in my students’ eyes when I pull back the curtain on what we do,” she said.
Classes are small, with only one or two students per session, and last for six months. Students are paid as they work through the classroom sessions taught by LifeSouth staff, including its physicians who serve as medical directors. The training also includes practical hands-on rotations through every one of LifeSouth’s major departments, as well as time at UF Health Shands Hospital and at the large donor testing lab in Tampa. Students also spend a couple of days working and observing on a bloodmobile.
“We want them to have that experience and realize how tough it is to get a unit in the door,” Drouillard said.
Laboratory Services Manager Josh Guthrie got his start as a med tech student. Like Drouillard, he said he had never envisioned his biology degree from Florida Gulf Coast University leading to a career in blood banking. The feedback he receives from today’s students is similar to what he experienced.
“They find the program interesting and the work we do in the lab interesting,” Guthrie said. “It’s a foot in the door of a very interesting career.”
Students have a two-year commitment to work for LifeSouth after graduating. All 20 graduates have successfully passed the qualifying exam for a state license as a clinical laboratory technologist. Currently, 14 of the grads still work for LifeSouth.
Eckert said that when the program was originally started, LifeSouth thought it would be a temporary solution to fill the shortage for qualified, licensed techs.
“We thought it would go away, but it’s just the opposite,” she said. “It’s opened doors for us.”