Sean A. McNair, CT(ASCP)CM
Cytotechnologist
Kew Gardens, NY
Examining cells to find cancer and infections today
For Sean, pursuing a career in cytotechnology meant he could understand cancer through a scientific lens. When he was 12 years old, his grandmother passed away from breast cancer and he didn’t understand what was happening to her. He just understood the words, saw that she was sick and one day she was gone. He discovered that a career in cytotechnology would help give him the answers.
My Lab Hero Story
I was paged by the operating room of my institution unexpectedly. The surgeon had a patient with a large thyroid mass which was crushing her trachea. The surgeon asked me to come to the operating room to run a test to rule out a cancerous disease causing the patient’s thyroid tumor. I understood the surgeon needed more information before taking care of his patient. I remotely transmitted the images from the patient’s cytology slides over the hospital’s network to the cytopathologist at her desk so she could make a preliminary diagnosis. Together, we came to the decision that the sample of her thyroid was benign (not cancerous).