Departmental News: Clinical Laboratory Sciences
by Michele Zitzmann, MHS '95 MT '90

The Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences has accepted 17 new students into the program.  Classes will begin on August 22, 2005.  The Department recently changed the curriculum to accept students twice a year instead of once a year.  We will be accepting an additional group of students to begin classes in January, 2006.  One reason for the curriculum change is to accommodate the School of Allied Health graduation ceremony, which will be conducted each year in May instead of August.

The current class of seniors attended the Louisiana/Mississippi Joint Annual Meeting in New Orleans during the week of April 25-28, 2005.  We had four teams compete in the Bi-state Annual Student Bowl Competition.  All teams performed very well, and one of our teams won first place!  Members of the winning team are:  Catherine Reitmeyer (captain), Angela Brade, Paulette Gaudry, Smrity Shubha, and Elizabeth Sosa.  They received individual first place plaques, and a larger team plaque, which is on display on the departmental “wall of fame”.  We are so proud of our winning team!

Our annual Job Fair was hosted in the Department on Friday, June 3rd.  Seventeen different laboratories participated in the event.  Students had the opportunity to meet with representatives about job opportunities and set up interviews.  Laboratory representatives were excited to have a head start in recruiting students, who will be graduating in August, 2005!

We have some new faces in our reception area!  We welcome Denise Guss, administrative coordinator II, and Erica Placide, student worker.  Denise and Erica will be assisting Andrea Thompson with many departmental responsibilities in the front office.  Our former student worker, Lauren Garnett, was accepted into the LSUHSC Medical Technology program in Shreveport, LA.  We will miss Lauren a lot, but wish her well in her professional studies!