She got COVID-19 in middle of job search. Now Columbus native helps fight virus in lab
COVID-19 stole a promising job opportunity for this budding scientist from Columbus in March, when the pandemic caused a hiring freeze at the Emory University School of Medicine. Three months later, another chance to get hired in a lab seemed to be lost when she tested positive for the coronavirus.
But this 2014 Northside High School graduate persevered. Now, Ellen Clegg is a lab technician at Ipsum Diagnostics in Atlanta — helping to fight the virus.
Clegg, 24, graduated from the University of Georgia in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in cellular biology. In an emailed interview with the Ledger-Enquirer, she shared her COVID-19 experience and what she has learned.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What are your job responsibilities?
“My main responsibility is something called aliquoting. To aliquot something means to take a sample or portion from a larger whole. I take a COVID-19 patient sample of 200 microliters from a larger sample tube and prepare it for testing. Other responsibilities include making sure our materials and supplies are well stocked, cleaning, sanitizing, disinfecting surfaces, instruments and anything else that we use on a regular basis.”
What is a typical workday like for you?
“I get to work at 7 a.m., and I set up my work station. All of my work is done in a biological safety cabinet, which allows for proper handling of the COVID-19 specimens. I have to make sure I have all of the correct materials and instruments ready before I start working. … Samples are initially received and placed onto plates or trays. Each plate consists of 94 COVID-19 specimens, one positive control and one negative control.
“In general, it takes about 30 minutes to aliquot one plate. On a busy day, I can get through about 9-10 plates. So I can aliquot roughly 900 COVID-19 samples per day.
“Around 10:30 a.m., I get tested for COVID myself. It is a company requirement that employees are tested every day they are in the lab, and some people are required to get tested before working via a drive-through test if they have been gone from the lab for longer than a couple of days.
“My shift ends at 3 p.m., and the second shift comes in right behind me to do it all over again. We have three shifts, each 8 hours long. There’s typically someone in the lab 24/7 in order to ensure a quick turnaround time.”
How did you end up working in that lab?
“I worked for AmeriCorps, basically the domestic Peace Corps, for about 11 months in Athens, and I started looking for jobs around March/April because I knew that the pandemic would make it harder for jobs to come by, and my AmeriCorps term was ending in July.
“I’ve always wanted to go into the medical field, so that combined with my science degree propelled me to search for jobs in labs, hospitals and any other healthcare-related environments. I just started off by searching on LinkedIn and other career websites and somehow came across the Ipsum Diagnostics website and emailed them my information.”
Before that, COVID-19 intervened, right?
“I interviewed for a research specialist position at Emory School of Medicine for a specific project related to Alzheimer’s treatment, and I was invited to tour the clinic in mid-March. This visit was canceled due to COVID-19, and Emory enacted a hiring freeze that included the position that I was pursuing.”
How did you react?
“This was pretty devastating because I felt good about my chances of getting the job, and I also knew how difficult it was to find a suitable job with just a bachelor’s degree in the biological sciences. I didn’t know when another opportunity like this would come up, but I really had no choice but to keep looking for employment.”
How did you persevere?
“Around mid-to-late May, I found out about Ipsum. My interview and conversations with them were promising until I tested positive for COVID-19 on June 2 via a rapid antigen test in Athens. They needed someone to start ASAP, and since I had to isolate for two weeks, they were not able to offer me the job.
“I never experienced any symptoms regardless of the positive test, and some of my coworkers, including my former boss, also received positive test results.
“After two weeks of quarantining, I reached back out... and they were able to offer me a position due to very high demand and a high volume of test samples being sent to the lab.
“The whole process was frustrating, but, at the same time, I knew it was happening the way it was supposed to happen.”
What have you learned about COVID-19 that most folks might not know?
“I think what a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that following the most basic precautions — wearing masks, sanitizing hands, maintaining distance from people — can make a larger difference that it may seem on the surface. Another thing is that these precautions are taken not only to protect yourself but also to keep other people safe and healthy.”
What is the toughest part about your job?
“The toughest part about my job is making sure that cross contamination doesn’t occur. We always want to make sure that patients are getting the most accurate test results. When you’re dealing with hundreds of samples per day, it’s important to make sure instruments are always clean and disinfected, and close attention to detail is often necessary to pick up on contamination errors.”
What is the most rewarding part about your job?
“The most rewarding aspect of this job is knowing that I’m making vital contributions to something that has undoubtedly affected every person in the world in some capacity. Whether it’s getting sick, losing a loved one or losing a job, people all over the world have felt the impact of this pandemic. It’s rewarding to know that my work is a necessary component in fighting COVID-19.”
What is your career goal?
“I expect to work here for the next 1-2 years, at which point I would like to apply to medical school or potentially pursue other graduate school options that would allow me to remain within the realm of immunology and pathology.”
Editor’s note: Ellen is the daughter of Ledger-Enquirer contributing sports columnist Guerry Clegg,
