Where the heroes are: a tribute to military MLTs

Medical Laboratory Observer, Dec, 2003 by Carren Bersch, Dottie Dunham

Young clinical laboratory officers may pursue fully funded master's and PhD programs. Enlisted personnel may pursue their undergraduate degrees for promotion potential. The same holds true for the Air Force and the Navy. According to Webster, the Army also has some of the most state-of-the-art clinical laboratory capabilities available with which to work.

Soldiers first

Among Webster's duties is reviewing files for new officer accessions for the Army as the clinical laboratory consultant. The basic requirement is to have an undergraduate degree in MT, as well as a one-year MT internship (usually built into the program) from an accredited school or a degree in a related scientific field, take and pass a national MT examination and be certified by that accrediting agency recognized by the Surgeon General's office. "For those without the internship but with a degree in a related science, he may join Medical Service Corps as a field medical assistant, then apply for the MT program at Walter Reed, just as I did," suggests Webster. For those young adults with a master's or PhD in microbiology or chemistry, they can apply to become microbiologists or chemists. "As members of the Army, they must realize they are soldiers first," says Webster.

Webster's view is that military lab techs are at no more increased risk than civilians when it comes to bioterrorism. "Where personnel may come in contact with agents such as anthrax and smallpox, staff may be protected with vaccinations. Most of our labs are sentinel labs, and we have some medical centers with biosafety level 3 capabilities to confirm biothreat agents," he continues. "We work closely with the local public health labs when dealing with biothreat agents. Military lab techs may likely see unique diseases as they serve at hospitals around the world. I am proud of every one of them for their hard work and patriotism."

One such soldier in Iraq

Maj. Martin E. "Rusty" Tenney, MEDCOM-HQ, Webster's comrade, volunteered for duty in Iraq. Tenney arrived last July and brought 21 years of experience as an Army med lab tech with him. Tenney is officer in charge, laboratory services, at a combat support hospital (CSH, pronounced "cash") lab. An Army CSH can support 164 beds with the capability to split the staff, equipment and shelters to allow two separate hospital operations. Currently, three Army CSHs support troops in Kuwait and Iraq: the 47th CSH, Fort Lewis, WA, in Kuwait; the 21st CSH, Fort Hood, TX, Mosul and Balad, Iraq; and the 28th CSH (pictured), Fort Bragg, NC, in Tikrit and Baghdad, Iraq.

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The portable CSH lab resembles a cargo container, and typically has two isoshelters, which store and transport lab equipment and serve--when unfolded--as the lab. All equipment and work-benches can be disconnected, placed in the isoshelter's center section and secured, then towed via a five-ton truck to a new location. One isoshelter serves as the blood bank with two plasma freezers, a blood refrigerator and blood unit centrifuge for making blood components in emergencies. The other serves as the main laboratory, equipped with Istats and Piccolos for chemistries and blood gases, MLA and RapidPoint coagulation analyzers, and Coulter ACT 10 Hematology Analyzers.