Summer Lab Science Program

Overview

The Summer Lab Science Program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., offers students the opportunity to gain experience in the clinical laboratory environment by working alongside Mayo Clinic laboratory scientists and health care professionals dedicated to diagnosing and treating disease.

Working with blood, tissue and bodily fluid specimens, technologists perform a wide range of tests, from the simple to the complex, using both time-honored manual techniques and state-of-the-art instruments. A patient's diagnosis, treatment and health may be directly dependent upon the laboratory testing results.

While in the Summer Lab Science Program, your responsibilities may include aliquoting, specimen extraction and preparation, centrifugation, test, assay and instrument validation, and instrument preparation and loading.

As clinical testing is highly regulated by Mayo's accrediting agencies and requires appropriate levels of educational degrees, you will not be responsible for performing clinical testing — though you'll have the opportunity to perform pre-analytical functions and potentially observe high-complexity testing.

The Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology provides essential laboratory services to physicians and patients from the community, region and around the world. All laboratories and technologists within the department support the practice of medicine through accurate and timely testing of all types of patient specimens.