u/Popular-Pause-6458

I work in LC-MS Clinical Biochemistry as an AP and I feel like i can't do my job very well. Some of my plates keep constantly failing and I do not know where i am going wrong.

It's mainly an assay to test for plasma metanephrines. Whats even more embarassing is that i trained a new member of staff how to do the assay. Their assay passed and their results looked really good but mine failed. I repeated the assay again and it failed again. I had a very high QCA and lots of abnormal peaks. I am not a BMS so i do not have a high level of understanding of the science behind it such as peak, ion exchange and retention time etc.

Its just incredibly frustrating that im nearly a year into the job and i'm still struggling. Whereas someone is only 2 months into the job and they can already do things a lot better than i can. They are also a temp so managers probably think they would rather keep him over me who is a permanent member of staff.

I was struggling with another issue earlier. I recieved extra training where we found it was a minor issue which was corrected. Now another issue has happened and it just feels like one problem after another.

I feel like i am wasting eveyones time including managers, other colleagues and my own. Most importantly i am wasting time with analyzers and delaying results for patients. I feel personally responsible for results not getting out on time. I can sense the feeling in the lab that people do not like me because i cant do my job properly. I also suffer from anxiety so when things do go wrong, I tend to overthink things which obviously doesnt help in a job like this.

Does anyone have any advice?

Hi, I am working in clinical biochemistry and there are occasions where I have to perform dilutions. In order to do these accurately I must callibrate my pipette. However, I am really struggling to understand how to do this with water and a balance.

Training is not very good at my workplace but I will try to see if I can a senior to watch over me soon.

For example if i am using a P25 pipette and i need to reach a volume of 20ųl. I would pipette 20 ųl into the balance and the reading would show 0.0180g. This is 18 ųl ? I would then prime the balance and add an extra 2 ųl to reach 0.0200 g? How would i adjust the pipette on the thumbweel? Obviously i would increase the increment by moving it clockwise but for how much and what should the setting show? Any help would be much appreciated thank you.

I've been working as an AP in LC-MS for about 8 months now and I am really struggling to understand this job. I pipette small volumes of patient serum samples into wells following structured SOPs and the assays frequently "fail" and must be repeated. In most cases they are repeated by a different colleague. When an assay fails, I get extremely dissappointed in myself because it feels like i wasted so much time, i have let the team down and i have also added extra work for everybody else. Most importantly, it means the patients results are delayed and i feel personally responsible for that. I have asked other colleagues about this and they said I have to just get used to things failing.

But surely the whole point is to do an assay and have it pass every time? I get told something fails and in most cases i dont get told why specifically it fails. Yesterday i did one assay and the next day i found out it failed and another colleague will repeat it. I felt like i should have not bothered coming into work that day because it was a complete waste of time. The BMS would tell me its a QC failure but is this my pipetting problem, machine problem or something else?

I get too much anxiety about whether an assay is going to pass or fail everytime before and after work. I come home from work and still think about what the results will be which is not great for my mental health. Does anyone have any advice for me? Is this the nature of working in clinical biochemisty mass spectrometry? If so, i will have to find another job as i do not think this is for me. Thanks.