Low-Fi Beats: How Taking the Lab Out of the Laboratory Can Be Used as a Recruitment Tool

Concerns about laboratory personnel recruitment are almost as old as the field of pathology itself. The very first U.S.-based clinical laboratory scientists began working in laboratories right before WWI was declared, and as the war raged on, a critical shortage of trained personnel occurred, impacting negatively upon the country, and the needs of our troops. The long-ago solution to this problem was on-the-job training for women left stateside, coupled with the development of educational programs designed to grow the field, both during and after the war.¹ These common-sense strategies sustained the laboratory workforce, and served public health, for many years.  

Times change, and the tried-and-true solutions of the past are no longer enough to meet the staffing needs of today’s laboratories. Creative, new ideas are clearly needed to fill laboratory slots, and to meet the ever-changing needs of communities from coast to coast. Lauren Schiefelbein, MLS(ASCP)CM, Education Coordinator, Medical Laboratory Science Program, University of Nebraska Medical Center is answering that call with cutting-edge innovations that speak to the next generation of laboratory professionals.   

To learn more about her work, Critical Values spoke to Ms. Schiefelbein about her innovative laboratory outreach ideas and their implementation.*  

Critical Values (CV): Your outreach model is unique in that it combines elements of art, music, and science. Tell us about your this approach to laboratory medicine recruitment.  

Lauren Schiefelbein, MLS(ASCP)^CM (LS): I’ve been working in laboratory recruitment for more than three years. In that time, I’ve seen how challenging it is to get attention at career fairs, mostly because we didn’t have eye-catching, hand-held props that could adequately represent the work that laboratory professionals do. You can do only so much with brochures. I wanted to create something that would not only explain laboratory professions but also generate enthusiasm. Toward that end, I fashioned DIY crafts and art forms into representations of specimens like cells and molecules. I also used the concept of low-fi music to categorize my work.  


Photo courtesy of Lauren Schiefelbein. 

CV: What age group does your work specifically target, and why? 

LS: I focus primarily on high school students. I’m currently pursuing a master's degree myself, so I spend a lot of time in MLS groups online, as well as reading lots of articles.  

A recurring theme in the content I was accessing was the pressure that kids in high school today face about their future, and their careers. The weight of those decisions was once experienced primarily in college, but has now been pushed down into high schools, so that students can go directly into the workforce and skip college if they choose to. The high schools themselves encourage opportunities to teach kids about available careers onsite, so there were also a lot of opportunities  to present our work.  

CV: So, you needed your work to be youth-oriented, as well as mobile.  

LS: Yes, exactly. I put lots of thought into how I could simulate the various elements of laboratory work, and carry it around in my pocket, so to speak, from school to school. But the visual elements, and the participatory elements, also had to speak to a new generation of burgeoning professionals, who were not knowledgeable about pathology and the opportunities available in the laboratory.  

CV: How did your work grow to meet that challenge? 

LS: The more students I met with, the better able I became at determining what would appeal to them. I focused on what brought them to my booth in the first place. This led to the development of low-fi engagement.  


Photo courtesy of Lauren Schiefelbein. 

CV: Can you explain what low-fi engagement is, and what it consists of?  

LS: The term “lo-fi (low fidelity)” refers to a school of music that folds imperfections directly into its sound. Elements like background noise and misplayed notes are left in for stylistic reasons.² Lo-fi music is often built upon hits of the past which are “hi-fi (high fidelity” and perfect.  

Lo-fi beats refer to tidbits, or brief chunks of information that represent a larger picture, or in this case, the various types of laboratories and laboratory professions that exist. We’re not able to reconstruct a hi-fi, hands-on, realistic laboratory environment for kids to access and work within at a career fair, but we can generate a lo-fi experience that enables them to get a sense of the work we do, and its importance.       

CV: How do you make the laboratory come alive off-site? 

LS: Creative props are essential. I wanted the “off-site lab” to have a realistic feel but without being too oversimplified. To do that, I got creative. 

I considered a career in the arts, prior to pursuing a science degree, so I’m comfortable working within multiple creative mediums. I wanted to generate visuals that would represent the various areas of laboratory science, so I looked up lots of tutorials on YouTube about how to make models and props. I just kept trying things out. Some projects worked, some didn’t. The low fidelity props that have the most appeal are the ones that are tactile, and highly representative of molecules, tissues, and blood cells and other specimens. We also build in games, puzzles, and challenges that appeal to this age group.  

CV: Are their particular booth elements that you’ve found have resonance?  

LS: There are many! One example is the “Meet Your Blood” display that has become a staple at our career fair booths. It includes digital slides and posters, plus representative laboratory elements like petri dishes full of glitter, ball pit balls, and pompoms. It also includes take-away red blood cell stress balls people can keep, once they’ve participated in a blood work experiment, and listened to a presentation about laboratory medical science.³   

We also use a very portable desktop display of printed cell cards that encourage kids to do an activity to find the cancer cells. Nobody likes cancer, so this resonates with lots of kids, who can see themselves participating in the battle against this disease someday.   

CV: Is there an encouraged next step for the interested students who gravitate to your presentations?  

LS: Yes. I’ve had students who were unfamiliar with laboratory professions seek out access to high-fidelity learning experiences, such as the two-hour UNMC case study events we host on campus twice a year. I’ve also had at least one student join our MLS program after having her first exposure at a lo-fi event.  

CV: What do you think the long-term impact of your work will be? 

LS: It’s going to take a few more years before we see the full result. But there has already been an increase in enrollment from under 30 students per graduating class to 40 or more.   

CV: How do you envision the next steps for this work? 

LS: Because lo-fi booths are storable and portable, we can pack up and go to as many career fairs and high school auditoriums as time allows. We can present in classrooms back-to-back with the same materials, in urban and rural settings. Anyone who understands laboratory work can run a booth, and lead presentations. 

For me personally, I see my next project as an analog one – to simply write down everything I’ve done so it can be shared. When I started this work, it was so experimental. Some visual and tactile elements worked better than others. Now, I think it’s a well-oiled machine. I can distribute a how-to, low-fi manual to others, so they can do it too. In this way, the work can grow throughout the U.S. Hopefully, laboratories from coast to coast will eventually benefit. That being said, I think it’s important that the field remains open to changing the way outreach is done. The old recruitment strategies worked for a long time and then weren’t enough. Holding onto the lessons of the past can help us to build a better future for the lab, and for public health.  

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length