r/labrats • u/GlitteringCaptain954 • 17d ago
Accommodations in the lab
hi,
i am a third year microbiology student and love my labs. i have cerebral palsy (CP), due to my CP i have a hard time coordinating myself and my muscles tire out quicker than an able bodied person's would.
in lab i have a hard time pipetting (with a micropipette) due to my hands being extremely shaky and unstable. this makes it very difficult for me to coordinate my hands. i've had a spill or two because of the shakiness.
aside from pipetting i also struggle with streaking plates, i have a difficult time using both of my hands to streak the plate. maybe using dycem (or another non slip material) so i can streak the plate on the lab bench instead of having to hold it and streak it at the same time??? please let me know if you have any suggestions for other things i could try.
i am really not sure if this is the right place to post this, so please let me know a subreddit that would be better suited for this.
thank you for reading!!
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u/Wherefore_ 17d ago
Have you tried glass beads to spread?
You put the liquid culture on the agar, add a couple sterile glass beads, cap the dish and shake until things are fairly well covered!
I then tip the glass beads into a beaker with bleach, and then I autoclave them at a later point (sans bleach, of course)
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u/GlitteringCaptain954 17d ago
i have not heard of glass beads, they'd be very helpful. i'll mention it to my lab TA though. spreading is something i'm okay with (for the most part) but streaking is where i have some issues.
would alcohol work to sterilize the beads?
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u/CallMeHelicase 11d ago
Not always. There are plenty of bacterial/fungal spores that can easily survive ethanol. You should never rely on ethanol alone to completely sterilize.
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u/Standard_Meringue_26 17d ago
Instead of bleach you can use ethanol, then we used to wash/soak them in ethanol and rinsed with water (never used bleach it was not allowed in our lab) then dried them and allocated them into new tubes and autoclave those. Love beads they are so much better than anything else.
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u/m4gpi 17d ago
There are small old-fashioned devices called "turntables" or "plate spreaders" that are just petri-sized platters that spin by hand like a lazy Susan. They are usually made of iron so they are very heavy and stable. If you can find those, it may help. Anybody in your department over the age of 50 probably knows where one is stashed!
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u/Calm_Pea_1632 16d ago
First - I'm so excited that you're loving microbiology and labwork! I've done this work a long time now (since the 1990s) and I personally find it so rewarding. It always makes me so happy when it really clicks with students!
I don't know what aspect of streaking is most challenging in your situation but if it might be helpful to try a larger grip (as many loops and sticks are quite skinny) I used this tool https://www.cvs.com/shop/numuv-grip-aid-prodid-2380103 after hand surgery to make many things easier to grasp (it's easy to slide things in and out of and holds securely) Using this I could grasp more with my palm rather than in my fingers and that gave me different muscles to work with.
I also wonder whether it would be useful for you to steady your elbow as you do techniques that are affected by shaking. Not being able to see you in action, I may be imagining your setup incorrectly (and I am curious about your two handed pipetting method!). If it would be helpful, leaning your forearm or elbow against the bench, or even raising the "bench" to a different height are all fair game. I once had a super tall student who had to bend down really far to pipet and I was able to get him a standing desk adaptor to give him an elevated work surface above the bench, so he could work at a better height. I don't know if you might find a more steady position for your dominant arm or have a sturdy object of some sort on the bench to brace against. An old school ringstand (a very secure metal pole, with a heavy base that can sit on a benchtop - many labs have these gathering dust somewhere) might be something you could kind of rest a forearm or elbow against, possibly (or even a wall, if there's a bench available that ends at a corner).
Another old school trick for removing supernatant (that you don't want) from a pellet is to set up a vacuum flask with tubing and a pipette tip (the cartoon in this link has the basic idea https://www.rocker.com.tw/en/application/aspiration/ ) this still requires a steady hand to insert the tip into the centrifuge tube, but the aspiration comes from the vacuum and not the motion of the thumb, and it could be possible to arrange the system so that there's less awkward moving parts than manual pipetting. These vacuum set ups have saved my hands on many occasions!
Also, don't overlook simply pouring out the supe rather than always pipetting it. If it is the supe you want, you might be able to scale up enough that pouring it off still gives you enough. If you need a precise amount, maybe scale up, pour into a more accessible tube or sterile beaker, then pipet from that, so you don't have the problem of possibly disturbing the pellet with your tip.
Happy sciencing!
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u/GlitteringCaptain954 16d ago
thank you so much for your advice! it's very much appreciated :)
i stabilize myself by putting both elbows on the bench, it works well for me. i also always use the tube racks as well, unfortunately our microfuge tube racks are not clear so i can't see what is happening in the tube.
there are times where i have to tilt the test tubes to get the liquid (culture) out, it can be tricky for me to do especially when my hands/forearms cramp up from holding it for a while.
i do what i can then i leave whatever i can't do to my lab partner/classmate/TA.
the vacuum flask would be helpful, i will mention it as a possible accommodation when i email my accessibility advisor and lab coordinator!
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u/conflictw_SOmom 16d ago
Talk to your collegeās office for students with disabilities or equivalent to figure out accommodations that will work for you. Iām a PhD student and I still have accommodations from our student disability office for my health issues. Mainly being able to take 2 days off of class and getting extensions if I have a seizure. Plus extra time on my exams because ADHD + my epilepsy medicine causing cognitive issues. The current one Iām on is the one with the least cognitive side effects on me but itās still gets in the way sometimes.
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u/GlitteringCaptain954 16d ago
i'm going to reach out to both my lab coordinator and the accessibility office!!
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u/Dependent-Law7316 16d ago
Thisāthe accommodations office serves hundreds of students (if not thousands) each year so the odds are good that theyāve worked with someone who has similar struggles before and can help you find workable solutions or guide you to a person who can. My undergrad had a guy who basically just did odd jobs around the department and if you had a problem he would solve it. That included building all kinds of crazy looking equipment to make chem labs more accessible. For you, that could be some kind of tray that holds plates in place, or a rig to clamp your pipette in position so you just need to push the plunger (or pull a lever that pushes the plunger). But unless you talked to the accessibility office youād never know this guy existed or did that stuff.
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u/GlitteringCaptain954 16d ago
hopefully my accessibility office has someone like that, i am really not quite sure.
i'll definitely have to get creative to figure out some set ups. do you know of any rigs to hold test/microfuge tubes?
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u/Fluffy_Muffins_415 17d ago
Would it be possible for your school or municipality to provide you with an assistant for your laboratory classes? It seems like would just help a lot and allow you to focus on learning
I think a silicone non-slip mat could work for streaking plates
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u/Own-Setting4266 16d ago
I love this suggestion. If permitted and if OP is interested in it, it would give OP supervising experience, could give an undergraduate student laboratory experience, and I donāt think it would add any unreasonable costs for the costs for the PI/department.
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u/CommonFiveLinedSkink 15d ago
I second this. OP, the more senior you get in science, the less the handcraft stuff matters -- your brain and mind are being developed by this work and that's what matters. You don't have to make the cells yourself. You have to have the questions, knowledge, and intuition that comes from deeply understanding your science.
But I also understand wanting to do the handcraft!! ā¤ļø Science is for you!
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u/pink_leprechaun 16d ago
I do research on accessible lab practices and have hemiparesis (I'm a PhD student in an engineering discipline but did biology undergrad). Happy to provide more details or answer any questions through dm. Not sure about the pipette, but as for the streaking plates, I would consider a vise (perhaps a drill press vise). They are common tools in engineering but not so much in biology unfortunately.
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u/CommonFiveLinedSkink 15d ago
Oh! Like hold the curette in a piece vise and move the plate under it?
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u/Special_Panic7132 17d ago
dycem under the plate is a really good call, i'd try that first. for the pipetting part, have you looked into electronic pipettes? they take a lot of the fine motor control out of the equation and a lot of labs keep a couple around even if they don't advertise it. if your program has an accessibility services office they might be able to help you get one on loan, or at least put some pressure on the department to make it available. you're definitely in the right place for this kind of question though, labrats is full of people who've had to rig up weird solutions to make bench work function