June 5, 2020, by Lee Mei Kee
UNM BMS Alumni Testimonial: Aisyah Affandi (2019)
After graduating in Biomedical Sciences (2019), I started applying various jobs and went on to many job interviews in Singapore. After many attempts I finally managed to secure a job in October as a Medical Technologist in Innovative Diagnostics. I started working in the haematology department and learnt various things related to the human blood. One in particular, was how to detect thalassemia using Hb electrophoresis and identifying HbH inclusion bodies as well as malaria parasites under a blood film. As medical technologists who help doctors diagnose patient’s conditions, we had competency tests monthly to ensure that we were giving correct and reliable results. We had to understand and identify every parameter and explain in detail to the doctors.
Aisyah and her team.
Fast forward into 2020, the pandemic started to hit Singapore and my laboratory worked with the government to run the COVID-19 tests using RT-PCR (Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction). I was shortlisted to join the Molecular team to run these tests. I learnt even more things in a short period of time because we were preparing for a mass testing islandwide. I was working 12 hour shifts in full PPE during the fasting month, analysing amplification plots, extracting RNA from the UTM samples etc. Now, I’m currently one of the seniors in the department and soon will be teaching others in the near future.
See Aisyah’s video “A Day at Work During COVID-19” on UNM BMS facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=263928948262606
Article written by: Aisyah Affandi (BSc Biomedical Sciences Graduate of Year 2019). She is currently working as a Medical Technologist in Innovative Diagnostics, Singapore.
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