I’m Louise Brown. I’m a Senior in Biochemistry at Monklands Hospital and Ross is one of our employees.
Ross is a Medical Laboratory Assistant, or MLA. His tasks involve opening and labelling a numbering samples and getting them prepared for analysis for the biochemistry and haematology department. He also carries out quite a lot of office duties, form scanning, just basically helping out biomedical scientist staff in the lab with different jobs.
I think it’s given him the confidence to realise he can do things, so he has transferred the social skills he has learned here to other areas of his life. He’s more sociable outside as well. He’s in a relationship at the moment. He is hoping to get a house in the next few weeks [where] he’ll move in himself, so he’s becoming an independent person. That’s great to see.
I’m Ross Johnstone, I’m aged 22. I work here at Monklands Hospital as a Medical Lab Assistant, also known as MLA.
Just a couple of weeks ago, my boss, Louise told me that [I] got nominated for an award, and I went “Really? Is this not The Oscars or something? Am I nominated for something, for Best Actor or something like that?”.
It was surprising, but also overwhelming. I have to say [I’m] really over the moon for myself and everyone out there.
Ross’s personality was always there, begging to get out. He just didn’t have the process to follow to make that happen. I think the confidence of coming to work every day and to be part of the team has allowed him to show exactly who he is. His personality really does shine through every day. He’s just an absolutely lovely boy. It’s kind of given him the ability to be exactly who he was supposed to be and given him the confidence to become an independent person, which is brilliant.