Page 8 - St. Judes

weekly. There was also a “cold room” or walk in refrigerator for
storage and also for some procedures such as sonication, which

provided high frequency sound waves to agitate and lyse cells,
bacteria, spores and finely diced tissue. It was important to wear ear
muffs to block out the high frequencies, but I sometimes didn’t
remember until I had turned sonicator on—maybe that’s why I have
such a hearing problem now! The centrifuge room contained the

machines that spun our samples round and round at very high and
sometimes ultra-high speed. In addition, there was a machine that
counted the amount of radioactivity in a sample. Those of us
working with radioactive samples had to do so in a special area and

wear a lead apron for most isotopes. Samples sometimes had to be
held until their radioactive half-life was over, then shipped off
somewhere in Washington state. I believe that procedure has
changed now, and states are all responsible for their own
radioactive waste disposal. A smaller lab was adjacent to the

Slotnick lab, and it had a hood for working with chemicals that gave
off odor as well as radioactive samples. This smaller lab was the one
assigned to Dr. Herb Ennis and his post-doc Paul??? And their
technicians, Judy Golphin and Ramona Tirey.

Dr. Slotnick had brought two technicians with him from Florida,

Mary and JoAnn. They were very helpful in teaching me the
laboratory procedures, which were somewhat different from the
ones I had learned in college.

The cafeteria was where everyone ate, patients, parents alike—

although there was a room where meetings were sometimes held
and where the professional staff seemed to congregate. I believe the
idea was to have all of us familiar with the mission of the hospital.
It was difficult at times to see some of the children in wheelchairs

with IVs, and even harder when those children disappeared when
the St. Jude medical staff, despite their best efforts, were not able to
save those children’s lives. The clinical staff were encouraged to
work in the basic science laboratories as well, and Charles Pratt,
M.D. came to the bacteriology lab.