Hands-on Insight
09/26/2025
Over the course of the summer, King shadowed professionals at Fulton County Health Center, the Fulton County Health Department, and Parkview Bryan Hospital.
Summer Grant Solidifies Career Path for MLS Major
Trevor King ’28, a medical laboratory science major from Wauseon, Ohio, spent his summer gaining hands-on insight into healthcare through Bluffton University’s Summer Discovery Grant program. With the support of the grant, King explored several laboratory and healthcare settings close to home, experiences that solidified his career aspirations and deepened his understanding of the field.
“I already had a thought of what I was going to do,” King explained. “I reached out to a couple of health places in my area and asked if I could come and see what they did. Everybody was really welcoming, and no one turned me away.”
Over the course of the summer, King shadowed professionals at Fulton County Health Center, the Fulton County Health Department, and Parkview Bryan Hospital. Each setting offered a unique perspective on laboratory work.
“Fulton County Health Center was definitely what I was most expecting,” King said. “It’s more of a smaller lab. That’s what I’m thinking I’m more interested in now after going through the whole process.”
In contrast, Parkview Bryan, which is part of a large corporate healthcare system, presented different challenges. “A lot of the differences are, I wouldn’t say size as much, but I would definitely say how strict they are,” King noted. “And also they were learning new programs all the time. […] It was good to see both sides of that.”
The Fulton County Health Department added yet another dimension. “They did have some laboratory stuff, but I also got to learn more about the healthcare field as a whole,” King shared.
"Across all three settings, King found the inner workings of the lab particularly fascinating. “I had never really known how a laboratory runs until I went and actually saw it for myself. Each of the different departments complement each other. They’re not usually waiting on each other. And in a pretty short amount of time, come together and can form a whole list of all the things that are either wrong with the patient or if it’s a clear sample.”
While most of his role was observational, King did get to try out some of the basics. “At Fulton County Health Center, they did let me do some very simple tasks, like put test tubes into a chemistry machine,” he said. “And I did get to look under the microscopes for some stuff. I also learned how to prepare slides and stain them, which was pretty cool.”
For King, the summer confirmed that medical laboratory science is the right fit. “As I’ve already said before, I knew kind of what I was getting into, but you don’t know it fully until you actually see it,” he reflected. “I mean, you take these classes, but you have to see how people work on a daily basis to really understand what this job is all about.”
King chose Bluffton for its supportive community and family connections. “I came to Bluffton not for my major. I came here because I have family connections to Bluffton, and I knew it was a nice campus. Then, after talking with professors, I found medical laboratory science and decided to give it a shot,” he explained."
Thanks to Bluffton and the Summer Discovery Grant, King gained a head start on his future career. “I think everybody in every field needs to actually see what a real job looks like before you actually go into it,” King explained. “This experience really solidified to me that this is the direction I think I need to go.”