Work Specific Skills

Work Specific Skills Work specific skills focusing on the use of standard operating procedures for different types of laboratory equipment, the calibration of standard laboratory equipment and the use of a lab book. This was chosen as a priority for me due to these skills being an essential part of any work I wish to do in the future, working or continuing my studies with in a lab. This set of skills is relevant to my skills matrix because it is a skill I have only had the chance to develop at my 5-week placement at Intertek. This is a key skill needed for my future, thus giving me a reason to analyse in detail how I have performed and what aspects need further improvements. During my placement this skill was continually tested and developed
These principles are standardised by standard operating producers (SOPs). These are a complete set of instruction on how to use equipment, safety and upkeep of the equipment the importance of SOPs in any laboratory is stated by Moreno-Villanueva et al., (2015). I was first exposed to SOPs on my first day of placement when I was given a set of SOPs to read to get a general idea of what is expected when I am using the equipment. However, upon reflection later in my placement it was apparent that I had not taken as much detail was I would have expected from just reading therefore, later on in the placement the lab manager demonstrated the use of the equipment with me. Once this had been done, I found it much easier and more confident using the equipment. It is my belief that I did not fully engage with sitting down and reading SOPs as I have always found I have been a kinetic/physical leaner as someone who likes to learn by doing and using their hands (The physical (bodily-kinesthetic) learning style, n.d.). I was able to demonstrate this skill by not only be able to use the machines and lab without supervision but also produce reliable sets of data. In the future I feel it would be beneficial to explain this to my employers as it would help save time as I am unlikely to learn from just reading SOPs
This technique was the use of a lab notebook. A lab notebook is designed to describe in detail often new experiments, including aims, health and safety and results (Isac-García, Dobado, Calvo-Flores, & Martínez-García, 2016). Throughout my five-week placement in my lab notebook was checked and signed off by my lab manager on the whole the comments were good explaining how detailed my notes were, this came easy to me as I’m a very organised person. However, early on a few comments were made to include a lab reference for the equipment used such as pipettes and balances. It was mentioned during my appraisal that my lab notebook was excellent and could be used by others to easily reproduce the research carried out on my placement. This proved my approach in being as detailed and as specific as I could in my notes such as product codes for any products used was