Lab Tech Career | A Complete Guide

What does a medical laboratory technician (MLT) do?

• Medical laboratory technicians help detect, diagnose, and treat illness and disease. They do this by performing laboratory procedures on blood, tissue, and other bodily fluids using microscopes, chemicals, and other medical equipment.
• Works closely with a medical laboratory technologist, scientist, or pathologist.
• The medical laboratory technician will possess a specific area of knowledge and technique to assess how certain procedures affect results. See areas of specialization below.

Specialization

• Medical laboratory technicians can specialize in five different areas: blood banking , hematology (blood related), immunology (study of immune system), chemistry (chemical analysis of body fluids), or microbiology (study of bacteria and other disease organisms).

Workplace

• Most medical laboratory technicians work in hospitals.
• Others may work at universities, private and public medical laboratories, and biomedical companies.

Education Requirements

• Minimum high school diploma or GED and Associate’s degree in medical laboratory technology with clinical training.

The recent outbreak of swine flu caused hospitals around the U.S. to request its lab technicians to work double time as they simply did not have the lab man hours to meet the increased demand. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that this kind of lab tech worker shortage may create risks to the overall quality and safety of health care if it isn’t addressed. The shortage may cause delayed, inaccurate test results and during times of crisis (pandemics, epidemics) the ability to respond is compromised.

Lab technicians play a critical role in our health care system. They perform a multitude of tests to examine and diagnose for deadly diseases and viruses - including cancer and heart disease. A skilled and experienced technician can often catch a discrepancy that a machine may not. While the lab-tech role is vital, these professionals are still in short supply as many hospitals are unable to fill even 50% of the lab technician jobs.

Cited reasons for the shortage of lab technicians in the workplace:

• Obscure career field as lab technicians typically work behind the scenes in hospitals
• Requirements for licensing and certification vary by state
• Salaries can be lower than nursing jobs
• Training is expensive for educational institutions

What can be done?

Clearly, the lab tech industry needs more PR and better marketing. While it may not have the same financial resources and cachet as the Army (”Be all that you can be”), it is a “feel-good save lives” type of career and this should be messaged clearly to people considering a job in lab-tech. Another key point is that additional funding for educators and financial aid for students would be instrumental in mitigating the shortage. State and federal money need to be accessed and used to provide more available training and build greater awareness of the potential risk to America’s health, especially when outbreaks like the swine flu arise.

The impact of  the lab-tech shortage is too big to be ignored.

Welcome to Lab Tech Career.com, a website and education resource dedicated to clinical and medical laboratory technology careers. We’re excited to start bringing news, articles, and insight into the various roles of lab technicians, their educational backgrounds and how they detect, fight and treat disease.