Ann Claesgens has the kind of career story you don’t hear much about anymore.
The number of different workplaces that spanned her 45(+) year career?
Two: Less than a year at the University of Minnesota Hospital, and the rest at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco, in her capacity as a medical laboratory scientist.
Ann graduated from the University of Minnesota’s Medical Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program in 1968 (known at the time as Medical Technology), a field to which she finally committed after contemplating careers as a veterinarian, then archeologist, then teacher. Her classes spanned the spectrum of liberal arts studies, including art history, music appreciation, and ancient history.
When she finally committed to medical laboratory sciences, she was fully invested, as evidenced by the tenacity she displayed catching up to the required curriculum, working a job drawing blood early in the morning before classes, then muscling through her post-graduation job at the University of Minnesota Hospital’s medical laboratory.
“I worked the night shift, the third shift, the graveyard shift four nights a week from 10 at night to 8 in the morning,” she said. “It was down in the basement”.
She did take time off to drive to California during February with a co-worker from the 2nd shift whose husband was returning to a military base after serving overseas. Something struck her when she visited San Francisco, that would have a lasting impact on her life moving forward. “There was no snow,” she says. “What can I tell you?”Ann’s love for the Bay area convinced her to return there soon after that visit, and then, she says, her professional future was sealed. “I spent the rest of my career at St. Mary’s Hospital and Medical Center in San Francisco.”
Ann worked in a lab the entirety of her tenure at St. Mary’s, but that’s not to say her stay was stagnant. Her University of Minnesota MLS education and her passion to help patients through laboratory diagnostics led her to apply her background within numerous areas, including chemistry, radio immunoassays (or RIAs, for running special tests, such as those on the thyroid, and drug testing) and microbiology. She also served as the education coordinator of St. Mary’s medical technology program, scheduling lab rotations for six students per year throughout the organization.
“I was very confident when I left the University of Minnesota. I knew I had been at one of the top programs in the country. Having been a new graduate and becoming an education coordinator, it wasn’t overwhelming. I was ready to face the world. I still feel good about the U of M program.”
Ann’s goodwill and gratitude toward the University of Minnesota’s Medical Laboratory Sciences program has engaged her in another decades-long endeavor. For almost 30 years she’s donated to the program.
“I like to give to the program because it provided me with a wonderful career, a good retirement, and people are needed in the labs these days,” she says. “For students today and in the future, I want to help them continue their education. It’s payback time.”