Lookin’ at U – Kirby Anderson

Each Thursday, we randomly feature a medical center employee. This week, we learn more about:

• Name: Kirby Anderson
• Hometown: Ashland, Neb.
• No. of years at UNMC: 29 in November.

Tell us about what you do at UNMC.
I’m a cytogenetic technologist, and I’m the lead technologist in the prenatal testing section. We do chromosome analysis on pregnant couples, on their babies, to make sure everything is OK. We do chromosome analysis on couples who have lost pregnancies, to try to figure out why they lost them, and hopefully help them be more successful with their pregnancies in the future, because sometimes mom or dad has a chromosome abnormality no one knows about.

Courage is one of UNMC’s brand values. Tell us of a time you witnessed courage at UNMC.
Certainly in what the patients go through. They’re sending samples to us to maybe get some really bad news. So that’s the main thing I think about when I think about courage — when the patient has to wait for a week or more to get good news or bad news, or no news at all sometimes. That’s really tough. And I’ve been through that myself. We had an amnio done here, and I had a cancer scare not too long ago that turned out to be nothing, thank God. But I think you get to a certain point in life where everybody goes through a little of that, waiting and wondering.

What is your favorite summer activity?
Spending time outside at the lake or the pool with my family.

List three things people may not know about you.

• My brother was an astronaut.
• I still hold a 400-meter hurdle record at Hastings College.
• I’m a (slightly embarrassed) fan of “The Bachelor/Bachelorette” TV shows.