About the Position: This position is located at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Department of Surgery, Army-Navy Organ Transplant. The work requires long periods of standing or sitting at laboratory bench, and extensive utilization of microscopes. Work may require intense concentration for analysis. Work areas may be confining. Working hours may be non-standard with weekend work. This is a Direct Hire Solicitation
Who May Apply: US Citizens In order to qualify, you must meet the education and/or experience requirements described below. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community; student; social). You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Your resume must clearly describe your relevant experience; if qualifying based on education, your transcripts will be required as part of your application. Additional information about transcripts is in this document Basic Requirement for Clinical Laboratory Scientist: A. A Bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree from a regionally accredited college/university including courses in biological science, chemistry and mathematics, AND successful completion of a Medical Laboratory Scientist/Clinical Laboratory Scientist program accredited by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS) or an accrediting body recognized by the U.S. Department of Education (external link) at the time the degree was obtained. OR B. A full 4-year course of study that included 12 months in a college or hospital-based medical technology program or medical technology school approved by a recognized accrediting organization. The professional medical technology curriculum may have consisted of a 1-year post- bachelor's certificate program or the last 1 or 2 years of a 4-year program of study culminating in a bachelor's in medical technology. OR C. A Bachelor's or graduate/higher level degree from an accredited college/university, including 16 semester hours (24 quarter hours) of biological science (with one semester in microbiology), 16 semester hours (24 quarter hours) of chemistry (with one semester in organic or biochemistry), one semester (one quarter) of mathematics, AND five years of full time acceptable clinical laboratory experience in Blood Banking, Chemistry, Hematology, microbiology, Immunology and Urinalysis/Body Fluids. This combination of education and experience must have provided knowledge of the theories, principles, and practices of medical technology equivalent to that provided by the full 4-year course of study described in A or B above. All science and mathematics courses must have been acceptable for credit toward meeting the requirements for a science major at an accredited college or university. Acceptable experience is responsible professional or technician experience in a hospital laboratory, health agency, industrial medical laboratory, or pharmaceutical house; or teaching, test development, or medical research program experience that provided an understanding of the methods and techniques applied in performing professional clinical laboratory work. Certification/licensure as a medical technologist (generalist) obtained through written examination by a nationally recognized credentialing agency or State licensing body is a good indication that the quality of experience is acceptable. Exemption: You are exempt from the basic requirements above if you are a current federal employee occupying a position in the 0644 occupational series and have been continuously employed in this occupational series since September 27, 2017 or before. Note: You will be required to provide appropriate documentation to the respective Human Resources Office to validate your status. In addition to meeting the basic requirement above, to qualify for this position you must also meet the qualification requirements listed below: Experience required: To qualify based on your work experience, your resume must describe one year of specialized experience which includes includes interpreting and/or processing Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) laboratory testing including HLA molecular typing, HLA antibody screening, and HLA flow cross-match testing; performing molecular HLA typing methods; selecting appropriate isolation technique such as peripheral blood, lymph nodes, and/or spleen, considering properties of the cells; and/or evaluating appropriate patient specimens for testing considering current and/or historical antibody information, sensitizing events.. This definition of specialized experience is typical of work performed at the next lower grade/level position in the federal service (GS-09). OR Education: Ph.D or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to such a degree in a field which demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of the position. OR Combination of Education and Experience: A combination of education and experience may be used to be qualify for this position as long as the computed percentage of the requirements is at least 100%. To compute the percentage of the requirements, divide your total months of qualifying experience by 12. Then, divide your semester hours of graduate education beyond the second year (total graduate semester hours minus 36) by 18. Add the two percentages. Experience or graduate education must have been in (1) the general field of medical technology; (2) one of the disciplines or specialized areas of medical technology; or (3) a field directly related and applicable to medical technology or the position to be filled. AND Certification: Certification from the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), American Medical Technologist (AMT) or other board or registry deemed comparable by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs (OASD(HA)) or their designee as a Medical Technologist (MT) or Medical Lab Scientist (MLS) is required.
Recognizes and eliminates components which may interfere with the assay (e.g. red blood cells (RBCs), platelets, PMNs). Determines the acceptability of the target cell.
Evaluates the validity of antigen assignments and assesses the need to perform additional testing to resolve any ambiguities.
Obtains, aliquots, and stores serum for maintenance of biologic activity.
Evaluates antibody specificity using statistical indices (e.g. tail analysis) considering crossreactivity of antigens.
Interprets and scores crossmatch results consistent with scoring per American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (ASHI) standards.
Performs quality control and assurance to assure quality work in a field which no standardized guidelines exist during each bench rotation (e.g. HLA typing, antibody testing, crossmatching).
Supports the HLA Supervisor in establishing and writing standard operating procedures (SOP) and methods for quality assurance monitoring and process validation.