Earlier this year, a patient's shortness of breath, back pain, continued coughing and weight loss baffled doctors in Modesto. When surgery to remove some tumors from the patient's lower back didn't help, they order a battery of blood tests at the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency lab. The lab is in the basement of the former Scenic Hospital in Modesto.

There, clinical scientists discovered the patient had brucellosis, a slow-growing disease commonly found in goats and sheep but rarely in humans.

"You can get it through eating unpasteurized white goat's milk and cheese," said Carole Thompson, who manages the lab. "They see it more in Mexico than they do up here. We found (the disease) by holding the culture longer than 48 hours."

Armed with new information, the doctor was able to prescribe a proper course of treatment. The patient is expected to fully recover, Thompson said.

While that case was among the most rewarding kind for the scientists to solve, it involved just one of about 500,000 tests they perform at the lab each year, she said.

Clinical lab scientists and technologists play an important role in the medical field, aiding doctors in diagnosing diseases. But they also perform drug testing through blood and urinalysis, blood-sugar tests, hepatitis tests and dozens of other sophisticated screens. They do their work without influence from doctors or a patient's employer, and out of view of the patient.

"We don't see patients," said Cheryl Harlan, one of the lab's scientists. "We're not biased. We just want to make sure it's right."

When test results are detrimental to the patient, the lab will offer an option.

"If (patients) want a repeat test, I'll do a repeat," scientist Marty Beltran said.

Despite their code of ethics, Thompson said clinical lab scientists are fighting to retain their status and role within the medical community.

"The HMOs are pressuring (the state) to downgrade schooling requirements," she said. "Clinical scientists are mostly college graduates. The HMOs have the idea that anybody can be taught, and that you don't need high-quality people doing the work. But who do you want doing your lab work when you're 65 -- a high school graduate or a college grad?"

There are 16 scientists who work at the lab and at two other county-owned facilities. The shortage of clinical lab scientists is so acute that many work a full shift at their regular lab, then work a shift at a hospital or other lab that needs the help, Thompson said.

Few people are becoming lab scientists, according to the Medical Laboratory Observer, because the industry hasn't done enough to promote itself. It also attributes the shortage to a combination of low pay, high stress and a 53 percent decrease in the number of schools offering clinical lab programs.

The training, said lab scientist Buda Kajer-Crain, goes well beyond simply screening blood or urine. The scientists must learn to work with a dozen or so pieces of high-tech detection equipment, checking to make sure each piece is accurate.

"The equipment has become more advanced," she said. "It's expensive, and you can't keep calling somebody. You have to have the skills to maintain it."

They use that machinery as an accessory to their knowledge and experience to detect things in the blood or urine that might be illegal or even deadly.

"We see things in here that you read about in the textbooks," Thompson said.

And because they read them, a local brucellosis victim is now getting along quite nicely.

Bee staff writer Jeff Jardine can be reached at 578-2383 or jjardine@modbee.com.

Reprinted by permission of The Modesto Bee.