Biomedical Science Day 2023

To celebrate Biomedical Science Day 2023, Natalia Carpenter, one of our senior biomedical scientists, shares her journey into Biomedical Science and her role at LCL.

Hi, I’m Natalia, I work as a senior Biomedical Scientist (BMS) in the Biochemistry department at Liverpool Clinical Laboratories. I am based in the lab on the Aintree Hospital site, where I’ve worked for almost 22 years. Coincidentally, I was actually born on the labour ward on this site when it was known as Fazakerley Hospital.

Although I did a Biomedical Science degree at Manchester University, it wasn’t accredited by IBMS, so I applied for a trainee position in Biochemistry, they offered to fund my top up modules which involved one afternoon a week at Manchester Met University.

Luckily, there was a job for me after I got my registration (with HCPC’s predecessor, CPSM). I worked for 12 years as a specialist BMS and then successfully applied for a senior post which also included a training officer role. This was a new role to our department and my role initially involved learning about the IBMS portfolio and help guide 2 of our trainee staff through to registration.

I think the training part of my job is what I find most satisfying. Seeing trainees and placement students from when they first set foot in the lab through to when they become professionally registered is really rewarding to witness. I’ve helped 18 trainees through the verification process now and performed 9 verifications as an external verifier. It’s lovely to deliver good news to trainees and tell them how their hard work has paid off.

We’ve always has a good team here at Aintree and we are working more collaboratively with our colleagues at Broadgreen and Royal Biochemistry than ever and this is set to increase in the future. I feel very well supported in my role; there are some fantastic people here and I feel lucky that I get to work with them every day.

We are an unknown entity to a lot of people – they know they get their bloods taken and that there are results at the end but what happens in between is often a mystery. We offer lab tours for hospital staff and they are always surprised at the scale of the laboratory. I think it’s important to highlight the work of biomedical scientists. We are an integral part of the patient pathway.

We may not be patient facing but we are always mindful that behind every sample, there is a patient and clinician waiting for results. I am proud to work in Biochemistry at LCL, and for the NHS.

 Watch a short BMS day video from Natalia here.