Top 21 Clinical Lab Technician Interview Questions (2021)

1) What are the responsibilities of Laboratory Technician?
Responsibilities of clinical lab technician varies with the department you are assigned to, but usually it involves

• Wide range of testing
• Running complex analysis
• Examine blood cells with mircoscope
• Scanning of specimen
• Using expensive chemicals wisely
• Maintaining and monitoring various equipment’s
• Checking contamination in chemicals at regular interval

2) Explain what is GLP?
GLP means Good Laboratory Practice.  It is a framework or pattern under which research work are planned, performed, monitored, recorded, reported and archived.

3) Explain why GLP is followed in the lab?

• Following GLP standard, minimizes the chance of error occurs due to humans
• It supports for product registration, and also assures the suitability of data to the regulatory authorities
• It helps to reduce the cost of industry and governments by avoiding duplicative testing
• It helps to re-create a study from the recorded data and information

4) What are the common errors done by technician while handling pipette?

• Failure to pre-wet the pipette tip
• Disregarding temperature –  temperature equilibrated
• Tip wiping over and again
• Choosing wrong pipetting mode
• Working too quickly
• Pipetting at a wrong angle
• Using wrong pipette tips

5) Why pipetting training is crucial for clinical technician?
By having a proper pipette training, always helps to minimize the risk of volume variability caused by Operators, also a small fraction of the change in pipetting can give you the wrong result.

6) Define what is Aliquot?
An aliquot is the known amount of homogeneous material, used to minimize the sampling error. It is usually used when fractional part is an exact divisor of the whole.

7) What are the different techniques for placing samples in micro-scope?
Different techniques used for placing samples under micro-scope are

• Dry Mount: You simply put section of specimen with a cover slip over a sample
• Wet Mount: Samples are placed under various liquid medium like glycerine, water, brine and water
• Smear Slides: In this technique, sample is smear over the slide and on top it another slide is placed without forming bubbles
• Squash Slides: In this technique, lens tissue is used over the wet mount, and it will remove excess water
• Staining: Stains such as iodine, methylene blue and crystal violet is used to stain the specimen

8) What are different sterilization methods used in laboratory?
The most common methods of sterilization practised in lab are

• Dry heat: Specimen containing bacteria is exposed to high temperature
• Wet heat: Pressurised steam is used to kill microbes, for example, autoclave that is like pressure cooker that produces steam.
• Filtration: Filtration is used where filters are as small as 0.2um is used
• Radiation: UV has limited penetration, so it is generally safe to use although it is less effective to X-rays and gamma rays. X-rays and gamma rays are used only for special purposes only
• Solvent:  Solvent like ethanol and iso-propanol kills microbial cells but not the spores

9) Explain what is the difference between sterilization and disinfection?

• Sterilization: The thorough sterilization of all microbes present on the surgical instrument is referred as Sterilization
• Disinfection: While reducing the total number of microbes below the risk level is referred as Disinfection

10) Explain what is gas sterilization?
In gas sterilization chemicals like ethylene oxide and mixture based on the substance are used for sterilizing substances.  They are highly flammable and potentially explosive in nature; they are mixed with inert gases to neutralize their explosive nature.

11) What are the factors on which the gas sterilization depends on?
Gas sterilization depends on factors like

• Concentration of the gas
• Humidity
• Time of exposure
• Temperature
• Nature of the load

12) Explain what clinical lab audit is and what are the areas you can do clinical audit?
A clinical lab audit is done in order to maintain and operate the lab at a standard level.
The area that includes in clinical audit are

• Specimens: To check the patient register and see whether the specimen was received at the right time
• Turnaround time: To check whether the specimen was tested and returned at allocated time, and if delayed how to improve it
• GLP: To check whether the test methods carried out follows the standard procedures
• Purchasing equipment’s, reagents and other lab instruments
• Laboratory reports: To check whether they are precise and clear and look for any area for improvement
• Storage of reagents and specimens
• Safety policies and procedures: Use of dangerous substances should be audited, and every single accident in the lab should be recorded.

13) Explain what is laboratory centrifuges?
Laboratory Centrifuge is primarily used for testing liquids and substances for clinical trial samples.  This device uses the centrifugal force to separate the liquids from the main sample or mixture.

14) Explain what is supernatant?
When sample is rotated into centrifuge, it will separate the mixture according to the density.  Supernatant is the upper layer found in the sample after it is run into centrifuge.

15) What are the steps you can take to avoid imbalance in centrifuge?
To avoid an imbalance in centrifuge it requires

• Balanced loading of the centrifuge rotor
• Even number of tubes should be loaded facing each other or in the opposite direction
• When odd number of tubes are loaded make sure, you make it even with adding one more tube with an equal amount of water of that of the sample tube

16) What is blank?
Blank term is used to refer the sample tube which does not contain the analyte.

17) Explain what is Calibration Curve?
Calibration curve is the relationship between the various concentration of analyte in a suitable solvent or matrix and the signal response of the instrument.

18) Explain what is co-chromatography?
Co-chromatography is the procedure used to detect an unknown substance by comparing the chromatic comparison with a known substance.

19) What do you mean by a confirmatory test?
For unambiguous identification of drug or metabolites in the sample, alternative chemical method is used also known as a second test.

20) Explain what is a positive control?
Positive control is a specimen having the analyte at a concentration above a specific limit.

21) Explain what is dynamic range?
It is defined as a range over which a relationship exists between assay response and analyte concentration.