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By Kate Hunger 

The School of Health Professions’ Medical Laboratory Sciences team won first place in an academic competition this spring.

The team competed against teams from across the state at the Student Bowl during the Texas Association for Clinical Laboratory Science annual meeting held March 23-24 in El Paso.

Team member Amanda Graham wasn’t sure what to expect when she signed up to compete in the Student Bowl, but her decision to be the team expert in the chemistry category was a strategic one. Graham, who will graduate in August as part of the program’s first class of master’s students, said the extra review time helped her prepare not only for the competition but also for her upcoming board exam. 

“It was very challenging,” Graham said of the double-elimination competition. “For each question, you have only 30 seconds to answer. You know everyone is sitting behind you. All of us were nervous.”

In addition to chemistry, the bowl categories included hematology, blood bank, microbiology, parasitology, urinalysis, and immunology. 

Graham’s teammates were team captain Emma King, Matthew John Landry, Katie Velasquez, and Steven Arriaga. 

Winning the competition was exciting and also offered Graham a chance to spread the word about medical laboratory science as a field when she shared the good news.

“You get to tell them about your profession,” she said. “I was very proud.”