OSF Saint Francis Medical Center

Peoria, Illinois

Essential Functions

Essential functions are non-academic requirements that a student must possess or develop to successfully participate in the program and be employable within the profession.

Observation

  • Characterize color, consistency and/or clarity of biologicals and reagents.
  • Use bright-field, fluorescent and phase binocular microscopes to discriminate fine differences in structure, size (in 1 um range), and color (hue, shading and intensity) in microscopic specimens.
  • Recognize and distinguish text, numbers and graphics in print and on monitor screens.

Movement

  • Move freely and safely about a clinical laboratory and to varied lab sites.
  • Perform moderately taxing, continuous, physical and mental work in an eight hour period, often requiring prolonged sitting.
  • Lift and move objects weighing up to 10 pounds on a regular basis.
  • Reach lab bench tops, shelves, and patients lying in hospital beds or seated in specimen collection chairs.
  • Hold, manipulate and control lab equipment (i.e. pipettes, inoculating loops, phlebotomy needles) to collect blood specimens and perform lab procedures.
  • Turn dials, press keypads, thread tubing, manipulate computer keyboards and otherwise adjust instruments to perform lab procedures.

Communication

  • Comprehend and communicate effectively in English.
  • Follow oral and written instructions to correctly perform lab procedures.
  • Converse effectively, confidentially and sensitively with patients at specimen collection or about lab tests.
  • Communicate appropriately and in a timely manner with faculty, students, staff and other health care professionals.
  • Possess auditory ability sufficient to monitor and assess job needs and to communicate with individuals including pathologists, groups, communities, and healthcare professionals, by hearing and responding to verbal communication in the learning and healthcare setting.
  • Respond to emergency signals of all types.

Behavior

  • Be honest, compassionate, ethical, confidential and responsible.
  • Manage the use of time, systematizing actions to complete professional and technical tasks within realistic constraints.
  • Provide professional and technical services, using one's intellect and exercising appropriate judgment, while experiencing the stress of task-related uncertainty (i.e. ambiguous test ordering, ambivalent test interpretation), emergent demands (i.e. "stat" test orders), and a distracting environment (i.e. moderate noise, complex visual stimuli).
  • Be flexible and creative in adapting to professional and technical change.
  • Recognize potentially hazardous materials, equipment, and situations, proceeding safely to minimize risk of injury to self and nearby personnel.
  • Adapt to working with unpleasant biologicals or reagents.
  • Support and promote the activities of colleagues, adopting a team approach to learning, task completion, problem solving and patient care.

Intellect

  • Use intellectual skills, including comprehension, measurement, calculation, analysis, integration, reasoning, application, interpretation and self-expression.
  • self-evaluation to recognize and correct performance deviations, implementing constructive criticism appropriately.
  • Evaluate the performance of peers, tactfully offering constructive comments.