The practice of modern medicine would be impossible without the tests performed in the clinical laboratory. A medical team of pathologists, specialists, technologists, and technicians work together to determine the presence, extent, or absence of disease and provide data needed to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment.
Laboratory procedures require an array of complex precision instruments and a variety of automated and electronic equipment. However, women and men interested in helping others are the foundation of a successful laboratory. They must be accurate, reliable, have an interest in science and be able to recognize their responsibility for human lives.
Laboratory roles are based on a career ladder of academic and technical components. Individuals interested in a medical laboratory career may direct their goals to one of many levels of education. Laboratory personnel may advance by acquiring additional education and/or technical experience, beginning with the medical laboratory technician program and progressing to a technologist or a specialist.
Critical to high-quality health care is the assurance that individuals performing laboratory tests are able to carry out their responsibilities in a proficient manner. Therefore, laboratory personnel of demonstrated competence are of prime importance.
The Board of Registry (BOR) of the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) provides a mechanism for these individuals to be recognized as having the necessary competence to perform the medical laboratory roles they seek. This mechanism is called certification.
A medical laboratory technician performs and supervises the performance of advanced laboratory procedures such as the autoanalyzers, recording spectrophotometers, blood gas analyzers, flame photometers (emission and absorption), osmometers, gas chromatographs, electrophoreses apparatus, sequential multiple analyzers, and other procedures, as required. Performs all phases of blood donor processing and blood banking procedures, clinical bacteriology, mycology, serology, immunohematology, hematology, parasitology, general, and clinical chemistry, toxicology and urinalysis......
