Lab Technician

Where You’ll Work

Founded in 1910, Dignity Health - Mercy Hospital is a 229-bed, acute care, nonprofit hospital located in Bakersfield, California. Serving nearly 90,000 patients annually, the hospital offers a full complement of services including Level II NICU, cancer care, women’s health, and orthopedics. Additionally, Mercy Hospital Downtown & Mercy Hospital Southwest have been recognized as an LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality High Performer by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. They are both Joint Commission-certified Primary Stroke Centers. Mercy Hospital Downtown offers the only inpatient Oncology Unit in Bakersfield while Mercy Hospital Southwest has the only Obstetric Emergency Department in Bakersfield.

One Community. One Mission. One California 

Job Summary and Responsibilities

As our Medical Lab Technologist, you will perform vital clinical laboratory procedures to detect, identify, measure, and report data crucial for disease diagnosis and treatment.Every day, you will expertly conduct waived and moderate procedures using technical skills, instrumentation, and information systems, providing essential clinical laboratory support while ensuring the quality and accuracy of all tests under leadership direction.To be successful in this role, you will possess comprehensive knowledge of laboratory principles across various disciplines (microbiology, hematology, chemistry, etc.), understand sample processing and result interpretation, prioritize chemical and biological safety, and be adept at operating and maintaining lab equipment.

Administrative Duties

• Familiarity and compliance with general laboratory safety practices, MSDS guidelines, State of California regulations andrequirements, OSHA standards, CDC recommendation and universal precautions.

Specimen Processing and Testing

• Participates in, and successfully completes technical competency testing in each area of job performance on a regularbasis to meet established requirements.
• Under the direction of a CLS, receive and process specimens within expected timelines. Evaluate specimens based onestablished guidelines for appropriateness of specimen vs. tests ordered, appropriateness of sample volume and thefrequency of test orders
• Under the direction of a CLS, operate specific automated equipment when measurement, standardization or calibration isnot required by the operator.
• Prepare specimens and necessary paperwork to accompany specimens referred to a reference laboratory.
• Receive, process, plant and incubate specimens for bacterial culture.
• Evaluate specimens based on established guidelines for appropriateness of specimen vs. tests ordered, appropriatenessof sample volume and frequency of test orders.
• Prepare and stain smears for Gram stain, Kinyoun stain and trichrome stain. Prepare wet preps.
• Receive and process blood culture specimens. Operate necessary automated equipment when measurement,standardization or calibration is not required by the operator.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Quality Control

• Under the direction of a CLS, perform instrument maintenance required for various automated equipment.
• Restock the various supplies necessary for performing lab test.

Job Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

• 1 year of clinical laboratory experience including knowledge of instrument operation specimen processing knowledge of specimen send-outs and/or microbiology specimen processing
• Certified Phlebotomy Technician certificate from LFS DPH CA (CA CPT I LICENSE)
• Heartsaver certification or Basic Life Support (BLS) certification

Preferred Requirements:

• Five years of clinical laboratory experience or two years of college preferred
• One year acute care hospital experience preferred

Please be advised that this location requires quarterly American Heart Association (AHA) Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI) competency certification post-hire. This ongoing competency is required through resources internal to the facility; outside RQI competency resources are not acceptable for CommonSpirit Health compliance requirements.