What year did you graduate from Barry University?
2015
What degree did you earn?
Master's in Clinical Biology with a specialization in Histotechnology
Tell us a little about your elf and what you’ve been doing
After graduating with my Bachelor of Science degree, I found myself researching graduate programs that combined my interests in histology, pathology and research. Barry University's Master of Science in Clinical Biology with an emphasis in Histotechnology fit the bill perfectly for me.
The campus was gorgeous, the class sizes were small, and I found myself immersed in an environment that was willing to facilitate the goals and level of education that I was looking for. Education is largely what you put into it and I never hit a barrier that prevented me from expanding my educational goals or growth. The faculty and staff at Barry seamlessly supported my academic and professional goals throughout the program and into my internship.
My internship at Memorial Hospital was invaluable in preparing me for a career in histotechnology. Not only was I introduced to the workflow typical of a large scale pathology group, but I was allowed to immerse myself in every facet of the job, from accessioning, frozen sectioning, IF, IHC, cutting, autostaining and manual staining.
Since graduating, I have found my degree to be useful on many fronts. I have worked in a hospital pathology department as a histotechnician participating from normal workflow embedding/cutting to optimizing new immunohistochemical stains, developing microarrays, streamline ER/PR/Her2 validation requirements, developing double staining protocols, developing destaining/restaining IHC protocols for scant tissue samples and assisting in autopsies.
In addition, I teach human anatomy and physiology at a local university, and have used my education from Barry to tailor the histology section to better represent common clinical pathologies and to introduce students to the field of histology, histotechnology and pathology.
Recently, I have been working with a specialty veterinary hospital on phenotyping canine lymphomas, mast cell tumors, histiocytomas and histiosarcomas. We will be the first animal hospital in the state to offer in-house immunocytology, reducing the diagnostic turn-around time from seven days to 48 hours.
The breadth of possibilities in this field are endless, and my education from Barry has been paramount to my success and advancement in this profession.