UT Health San Antonio takes top spot in Jeopardy-style academic competition

Monday, April 24, 2017

By Kate Hunger

A: A team of medical laboratory science students from the School of Health Professions.

Q: Who won the Academic Student Bowl competition at the annual meeting of the Texas Association for Clinical Laboratory Science?

Think Jeopardy with a laser focus on clinical laboratory science and you’ll have a pretty clear idea of the format of the competition, held during the March 29 to April 1 annual meeting of the Texas Association for Clinical Laboratory Science.

Team members Kenci Hilbrich (captain), Alan Matthews, Sarah Aceves, Ashley Vierling and Joyce Flores answered questions about the major disciplines of medical laboratory sciences, including clinical chemistry, hematology, immunohematology, and medical microbiology. The competition was divided into 30-minutes rounds, with a double-elimination format.

The UT Health San Antonio team was one of seven teams from programs across Texas.

“Competition was rigorous, but our students prevailed,” Cheryl Burns, M.S., MLS (ASCP), associate professor and director of the medical laboratory sciences programs, wrote in an email.