When he was training to become a medical technologist in Quezon City, Philippines 15 years ago, never dreamed he would someday run a laboratory for a small community hospital in rural Nebraska. Nor did he ever think he would first make a four-year career stop in Saudia Arabia as a hematology technologist at a government hospital in Riyadh. But the tremendous variety of job opportunities in laboratory medicine is one of the aspects of the field Rex enjoys most.
“Early this year, I returned to my alma mater, Trinity University of Asia, in the Philippines, where I was asked to talk to students about my career success,” he said. “One of the things I told them is that you can go anywhere with this profession, in terms of geography or different career paths like research, teaching, or forensics,” he said.
Rex was first attracted to the career in high school, where he excelled at science. “A lot of people, including me, start out in this profession thinking they want to be doctors,” said Rex, “because most of the courses in third-year med studies are basically about medical technology and pathology. I found that the field appealed to me, because you are always are finding out things, like a detective.”
Graduating in 1997 with a bachelor of science degree in the subject, Rex joined the staff of Santo Tomas University Hospital in Manila as a certified medical technologist specializing in microbiology and hematology. Not long afterwards, a former college professor mentioned an opening for a hematology specialist at a large Saudi Arabian hospital for police personnel and their dependents. Rex, who had traveled to Saudi Arabia frequently during his youth to visit his father where he worked for a local airline, jumped at the chance.
“While I speak a little Arabic, the hospital uses American and Canadian laboratory standards, so language wasn’t really a problem,” said Rex. “And the job gave me the opportunity to see very different cases, such as testing the bone marrow of a day-old infant for leukemia and other kinds of special hematologic procedures and staining. It was awesome training.”
Unable to obtain Saudi citizenship, however, Rex followed a former colleague’s advice, and, in 2003, through a job recruiter, found a position in the U.S., at Morrill County Community Hospital, a 20-bed, critical access and basic trauma facility in Bridgeport, NE. He began as medical technologist, also becoming licensed as a limited scope of practice radiologist in response to the hospital’s need. By 2005, he was promoted to laboratory manager, supervising a staff of four, while also acting as the lab’s information systems administrator, and education director.
Today, he and his team rotate laboratory staffing, each working a 10-hour shift four days a week, and being on call one day each week and one weekend each month.
“You do it all in a facility like this, from drawing blood, right up to results analysis and reporting,” said Rex. He enjoys working in the small facility where patients – most of them farmers, ranchers and railroad workers and their families -- are treated “like family.” “My passion is being a ‘man for others,’ always being of service to people,” said Rex, adding that the best part of his job is the people with whom he works. “I always tell my team that the lab, the doctors and the hospital staff are like a three-legged stool – if one leg is down, the whole team is affected.”
And while he may not handle the highly complex testing that characterized his job in Saudi Arabia, Rex takes tremendous pride in the many improvements he has made at Morrill County since his arrival. Under his leadership, the lab has been recognized by the Nebraska Health and Human Services System Regulation and the state’s Public Health Laboratory as a founding member of the Nebraska Laboratory Network. He recently implemented the lab’s first laboratory information system, and is currently leading the laboratory through a quality management system accreditation process which, when completed, will align the lab with highest international and domestic laboratory and medical quality standards -- one of only nine hospitals in the U.S. thus far to apply for such accreditation. The process is being administered by COLA, a premier laboratory accrediting organization for physician office and hospital laboratories, which also recently awarded the hospital its Laboratory Excellence Award for achieving a perfect score during a 2008 inspection.
Rex is also studying online for his Master of Science degree in Clinical Laboratory Science from Michigan State University, which he plans to complete in December, 2008.
He advises prospective students that, if they have a passion for science and detection, that they give the laboratory profession a try because “there is never a dull moment.” Added Rex: “We may be more behind the scenes compared to other health care professionals, but what we do contributes to saving lives. For example, what would happen if we weren’t there to run the cardiac marker tests on a patient complaining of chest pain? Laboratory professionals ensure that patients are diagnosed and treated quickly and accurately by the rest of the medical team. It’s s very rewarding to know that we played a role in any kind of early detection of a medical problem.
“We may be a small hospital, but I always try to instill in my team that, regardless of our size, we are committed to quality and the community we serve.”
Morrill County Community Hospital has been a COLA client since 2006.
