{"id":849,"date":"2021-12-20T15:15:51","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T15:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/?p=849"},"modified":"2022-01-11T10:44:34","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T10:44:34","slug":"my-work-experience-highlights-sumaya-jama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/my-work-experience-highlights-sumaya-jama\/","title":{"rendered":"My Work Experience Highlights: Sumaya Jama"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Sumaya Jama, Fourth Year, Biomedical Sciences BSc <\/strong>
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After my second year of university, I completed a year-long placement at St George’s University Hospital in the clinical blood science laboratory. My role included a variety of tasks such as testing patient samples, carrying out quality controls on analysers and maintaining emergency blood transfusion bags throughout the hospital. I was able to work and experience the different departments in the haematology laboratory such as coagulation and haemoglobinopathies, so I was always learning something new.<\/span><\/p>\n

Due to how vast the role was, I gained a variety of skills in the laboratory. For example, prior to working in the laboratory, I had never used automated equipment for sample testing. In university most of the tests are done manually so switching to using an analyser was a new experience for me. This allowed me to expand on my technical skills which are very beneficial as the majority of laboratories use automation. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The experience taught me the importance of attention to detail, and as a biomedical scientist, it is important to recognize changes or abnormalities as they can affect the patient’s testing and results. The placement strengthened my laboratory-based skills due to the variety of tests I carried out such as a Kleihauer test where I stained cells to detect fetal haemoglobin in adults. From this, I gained laboratory-based skills I could only experience in a hospital laboratory.<\/p>

The university really helped students like me not only secure the placement but prepare for this experience. In my second year, I had a module called professional practice for biomedical scientists, which taught us key skills and knowledge required for a biomedical scientist such as understanding health and safety. The module helped me prepare for the placement which made me feel less nervous about this new experience. As I had to write a CV and complete interviews, I used the careers and employability service at the university. Here I had my CV checked and had a mock interview to work on my interview techniques and boost my employability skills.<\/p>

The experience has boosted my employability as I already have these key biomedical scientist skills before graduating which make me stand out from the crowd. I know what it takes to be a good team member in a busy laboratory, and I can demonstrate this due to my work experience. The placement year also allowed me to complete my IBMS portfolio which is needed for me to work as a biomedical scientist once I finish university. The year-long placement was a new and challenging experience for me, I had never worked in a professional workplace prior to this. Nevertheless, I completed the placement feeling confident and ready for the working world.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fourth Year Biomedical Sciences BSc student, Sumaya, tells us her placement year at St George\u2019s University Hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[24,27,33,30],"class_list":["post-849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work-experience","tag-student-life","tag-undergraduate","tag-work","tag-work-experience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/wearewestminster\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}