VLE case studies
VLE · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Veterinary Laboratory Educator (VLE) certification is a professional credential for veterinary technicians, laboratory professionals, and educators who teach clinical laboratory science in veterinary technology programs, teaching hospitals, or diagnostic laboratories. It signals that a candidate can design instruction, run a safe teaching lab, and translate bench practice into assessable learning outcomes. The VLE case studies are 5 cases and about 3,837 words.
1Seven Failures on the Same Two Fields
A veterinary technology program admits 24 second-year students to a hematology course. The practical examination requires each student to prepare a Wright-stained smear from an EDTA canine blood sample, perform a 100-cell differential, and identify neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and platelets.
795 words, about 4 min2Goat Placenta on an Open Bench
At a veterinary teaching hospital's BSL-2 microbiology laboratory, 16 students in a clinical rotations course process a placenta and fetal stomach contents from a goat farm experiencing an abortion storm. The instructor sets up a culture exercise: students open the plates on an open bench, subculture, and, as is customary in the course, smell the plates to describe odor.
764 words, about 4 min3The New Lot and the Thirty Student Samples
The teaching laboratory's chemistry analyzer was switched to a new creatinine reagent lot on Friday morning. Only level 2 quality control material was run once with the new lot and gave 1.18 mg/dL against an established mean of 1.20 mg/dL and SD of 0.05; the instructor considered this acceptable.
780 words, about 4 min4Low Platelets on Every Feline Sample
During a junior laboratory techniques course, five EDTA blood samples from healthy cats are run on an impedance hematology analyzer. All five return platelet counts between 40 and 70 x 10^9/L; the analyzer flags platelet clumps on only one.
744 words, about 4 min5A Potassium of 7.9 That Never Reached the Clinician
A 9-year-old male cat with urethral obstruction is in the emergency service. At 4:50 pm a student on clinical rotation runs a chemistry panel and obtains potassium 7.9 mmol/L with a hemolysis index of 3+ (moderate).
754 words, about 4 min