Northwell Health Labs provides career growth for lab technologists

When Nathan Howell first started working at Northwell Health Labs in 2016, he accepted a position as a lab support associate after graduating college. Since then he’s grown his career working in our automated lab, becoming a lab technologist and specializing in Chemistry, Special Chemistry, and Serology.

For Nathan, Northwell Health Labs was the perfect start to his career to get the well-rounded experience he needed to grow as a lab technologist. “I’m glad that I made the leap to work in the automated lab straight from school because it’s an opportunity to work alongside an incredibly skilled and knowledgeable staff and to grow exponentially as a younger technologist,” says Nathan.

And working in the automated lab, Nathan enjoyed being able to continue learning thanks to the diversity of departments there. “I’ve had the opportunity to gain experience in everything from specimen processing and accessioning, to quality control validation and assay correlation, as well as extensive instrument maintenance and troubleshooting,” says Nathan. “The scale and depth of which I have learned these skills is something that can only be obtained here at Northwell.”

Northwell’s automated laboratory is a 101,000 square-foot facility with the largest Roche automated line of its kind in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. This provides our clinical laboratory team access to the state-of-the-art equipment they need to help physicians deliver life-saving results to our patients.

With over 30 million tests performed at our 23 hospital-based labs and centralized laboratories, Nathan is able to gain experience with a variety of cases he might not see anywhere else. “Abnormalities or diseases that are typically very rare – such as 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 500,000 to even 1 in 1,000,000 – become more common. There’s something new to be seen and to learn on an almost day-to-day basis working at Northwell.”

Beyond developing his own career, working behind the scenes as one of healthcare’s “unsung heroes” is also extremely rewarding. “I take a lot of pride in knowing the work that I do and the care I put into the instruments that run our specimens has a direct impact on this lab’s ability to provide quick and accurate patient care,” says Nathan. “The level of detail and care that goes into our process to ensure we’re providing the best patient care possible is something that is unmatched anywhere else.”

Are you Made for making a big impact on a microscopic level? Join our clinical laboratory team today.