NMSSAMT Spring 2008 SCIENTIFIC MEETING

ON LINE EDUCATION

Terri Hock, Dean of Education Apollo College

Ms. Hock outlined how Apollo College has adapted some of their course studies to courses that can be taken by students on line. She discussed which students were likely to take on line courses. They include those who live in areas that are distant from the school campus and who find it difficult to travel to the school. Also, some students who may have young children at home find taking on line courses helpful so they don’t have to find childcare.

The student characteristics that the school look for in a on line candidate are, they must be computer literate, Independent and self managed, they much concerned about time, do not live near the campus, must be a good reader and be career goal oriented.

Ms. Hock explained how the curriculum was developed and how the program is administered. She took us to Apollo’s sample on line course in psychology and walked us through the steps a student must take for an on line course. If one wishes to check it for his/herself the URL is www.apollocollegeonline.com. The ID is demostudent and the password is demostudent.

METH MOUTH
Ellen Cardone, DACR, Career Services Representative Apollo College

This presentation was about the correlation of drug use and dental decay and the oral effects of methamphetamine use. Ms Cardone explained what methamphetamine is, what it looks like and the numerous street names. She went on to explain how it was used legally by the German military during WWII to make their shoulders more alert for longer times, eat less and be more aggressive. It was also used in Japan to keep the shoulders more alert. Then truck drivers started to use it to keep them awake on long hauls, women used it to loose weight and athletes used it for performance enhancement.

Ms Cardone showed us a recipe and directions for making “meth” that is easily obtained on the Internet. She went on to explain how this long and short term effects of this drug have on the body. She went on to tell us that 12 million people in the US have tried it and at least 1.5 million are regular users. And, that the use by 18 year olds and younger children is on the rise. When compared to cocaine meth causes a longer high and is much cheaper to use.

Then, Ms Cardone showed pictures of the teeth and gums of methamphetamine users. The photos were very graphic in the terrible damage to a person’s teeth and gums. She showed some teeth that could be saved and repaired and most that could not. The only recourse for these people is to pull the teeth and fit the patient with dentures. But, even those that can be repaired won’t stay that way unless the person decides to stop using the drug and start taking proper care of their teeth.

This was a very informative and interesting presentation.


WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAB/WHERE DO MLTS COME FROM
Nancy Zerbst, MT, ASCP

MS Zerbst began her presentation with a brief history of laboratory workers when they were real scientists and were considered lab “geeks”. She reminisced about performing all lab tests by hand, with no automation, making the reagents, stains and agars used in laboratory testing. This was when the labs were smaller and usually in a hospital basement near the morgue. This was also before OSHA came into the labs to check the working environment where eating, drinking and smoking at the bench was acceptable. When no one in the lab wore gloves and reagents and specimens were mouth pipetted. All of the older members had stories to tell about potluck food kept warm in the incubator, lunches in the refrigerator beside rack holding blood specimens, taking out dated blood bank blood home to feed the roses. This was a time when a STAT test could take hours. Then most Medical Technologists or technicians either had two years of junior college and a year of clinical training, or went to one or two year technical schools. Many medical laboratory workers were people with BS degrees in chemistry, biology, etc. and were then trained in the medical laboratory.

MS Zerbst went on to explain the education and training requirements for MT, and MLTs today. She explained that the only educational requirement for CLA and TLA personnel is a high school diploma and on the job training. With automation, robotic systems these less trained and educated workers are replacing MT and MLT people in the medical laboratories. CLIA 88 allows workers with less knowledge to perform a wide range of laboratory responsibilities. The MT and MLT people a needed to do microscopic work, review test results and quality control results to make sure they are reasonable and within required limits. They are also needed to do trouble shooting when the automatic instruments are not functioning correctly or when values are incorrect.

She also explained the different laboratory certifying agencies. There was a general agreement that other medical professionals don’t really know what education, training and experience Medical Technologists and Medical Laboratory Technicians have and since there are several certifying agencies the MT and MLT people are not always considered professionals by the rest of the medical community. There was a feeling that until there is some sort of combined certification this thinking won’t change.

This was an interesting presentation reared mainly to students who are contemplating entering the medical laboratory field. But, it sure brought back much good and not so good memory for we older laboratory professionals.


TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
Christopher Ryan Teague, EMT, RT

Christopher Teague gave our group a presentation last year at our spring meeting about how he survived a terrible auto accident in which he received severe head trauma. This presentation was an extension of that talk. He briefly reviewed how severe his injuries were from the accident that occurred two weeks before his eighteenth birthday. He told us that his left cheekbone was broken and there was extensive nerve damage when nerves to his face and ear were wavered. He also had severe damage to the temporal lobe of his brain and partial damage to the parietal lobe. He was in a coma for three weeks. When he came out of the coma, he could understand what the medical personnel and his family were asking him to do but he couldn’t form verbal answers of make his body do any of the tasks asked of him.

He received anti seizure medication and other drugs to reduce brain swelling, and for other problems. He received physical and more surgery. These things did help him but the doctors mainly thought he would be in a severely disabled condition for the remainder of his life where he was unable to blink his left eye, control the muscles on the left side of his face, regain his memory, speak or do many of the things we all take for granted. The doctors figured he lost about 95% of his brain cells. While visiting his grandfather in Hawaii, he was able to convey to his grandfather that he was very concerned about the way his face looked and his inability to smile or control any of his facial muscles. His grandfather told him to sit and focus his mind of making his face form a smile. So, he did this, just pictured himself smiling and concentration on only that one thing. Then he looked in a mirror and focused on smiling. He thought he detected a very small tilt of his mouth. From then on he practiced a sort of Transcendental Meditation to retrain his remaining brain cells. He came across a study performed by two doctors who were working with patients getting them to concentrate on making cuts heal faster, shrinking tumors and healing other physical ills. They were doing research on the very sort of self-hypnosis that Christopher was doing on his own initiative.

Today, Mr. Teague has some residual facial paralysis. He is deaf in his left ear and occasionally suffers from severe headaches. He continues using this self-hypnosis Transcendental Meditation regimen. He is now twenty-eight years old, is a
Emergency Medical Technician, a Respiratory Therapist and teaches at Santa Fe Community College. He married and has a young daughter. Christopher’s story is of a remarkable young man who suffered severe trauma, was thought dead until the EMTs that first reached him after the accident refused to give up and got him air lifted to a center that was able to keep him alive. It is a story of a young man’s determination to use what brain cells were left to him to their limit.

The NMSSAMT Business and Board Meetings followed.  Outgoing President, Hildie Polasky was presented a plaque by the officers and members of the state society.