17th week of SIP - Laboratory Management

(This entry will get drier as it goes.....)

Since the school semester ended, our job as a TSO revolves around laboratory management and cleanliness! It's the best time to carry out 'spring cleaning" and organising paperwork! And it's maintenance of both MCT and MBIO lab! There're 2 more lab in MCT lab for those who took MCT before should know.. '4' labs down to me, charmaine and my poor supervisor to clean up.. (T_T) Chemicals such as media prepared by students were discarded. Contaminated media were autoclaved befor disposal. Equipment were cleaned with 70% alcohol or detergent. We had cleaned the incubators, water baths, 4 degrees fridge which we kept our DMEM for MCT practical (due to its size, we took one whole day to clean it and it looks exactly like a brand new fridge!) And the most shocking thing about the fridge was that the exhaust fan cover was transparent in colour! the amount of dust accumulated deserved 10 times "oh my god"! Latest news - all the labs had undergone big renovation! the lecturer's bench disappeared.. It's a pity we're not using MCT or MBIO lab anymore.. We know all the passwords and keys to everything! haha..

Other than spring cleaning, we had done tonnes of admin work! I guess we spent at least a month on the paperwork! Each lab have to maintain 4 types of documents. For File#1, it consists of general records like list of chemical, accessories and equipment (abbreviated LOC, LOA, LOE).. For the LOC we had to check if all the chemicals in the list are atill available.. For your information, there are 2 safety cabinet, 1 flammable cabinet, 4 4degree fridge, 4 -20degree fridge and 1 -80degree fridge! after checking every chemicals, our hands will be so freezing numb! And the checking was not only done once.. I suppose we can memorise where all the chemicals are... become walking chemical inventory list! Equipment were checked against the LOE.. As the LOA was updated quite recently, therefore we can leave it aside.. *phew*

For File#2, it contains all the MSDS! For this particular file, we spent almost 7 days on sorting the MSDS for two labs! Imagine 7 days 9-6 only MSDS! MSDS-phobia... As our supervisor just took over these 2 labs therefore the workload is heavier.. Lab file #3 basically contains all the maintenance records and service contracts for equipment. Lab file #4 is on the laboratory equipment SOPs and the inventory list. During LMQA, Ms Chew said before that our school has spent much money and alot of paperwork to get ISO 9001 & ISO 14001 acreditation.. Now I really know how much paperwork was required! It's an eye opener! So next time, we see any TSOs.. we must really appreciate them! on top of preparing reagents for us, they still have to do all the paperwork and maintaining a clean and organised lab!

Joan

TG01