CLINICAL LAB SCIENEC

CHAPTER 1: HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE 25
health. In 2005, will our CLS/MT graduates be prepared for the manager and
educator roles? ”
Many exceptional CLS/MT programs are preparing graduates with the
advanced skills set needed for technical performance as well as management
roles (National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences, 2000).
When the new graduates arrive in the workplace, will managers provide positions
so graduates can use these skills in addition to their technical skills, or will
the basic core job tasks still be the province of the new graduates? In July 2000,
the ASCP Board of Registry’s prospective study of career patterns reported that
in the first 5 years of practice, CLSs/MTs did acquire more advanced technical
and management tasks but were still assigned mostly core tasks. Many CLS/
MT programs have an introduction to management and education course(s) in
their curricula. But is it sufficient to prepare them for the future, or is a generous
amount of technical work a valuable component of preparing an advanced
laboratory worker for a management role? With the CLT/MLT performing the
majority of bench tests, it is possible that many MT/CLS personnel will eventually
move to administrative roles early in their respective careers.
Summary
Medical laboratories have evolved over a span of several thousand years beginning
with simple observations by the physicians who also performed their own
rudimentary laboratory “procedures.” Mass screening of immigrants also lead to
an understanding of infectious and chronic diseases and the awareness of tests
to rule out a variety of illnesses. As laboratory procedures increased in number,
a new profession was born in the early 1900s that required training and education.
Inventions and research leading to improved methodology persists to this
day that were initiated by early innovations and observations by scientists and
physicians. The laboratory of today is one of the most technologically advanced
departments within a major medical facility.
Clinical laboratory workers have a myriad of opportunities within the laboratory
profession. The four major departments of the clinical laboratory afford
the professional a choice of the basic types of work that are performed in a
typical laboratory setting. An additional possibility lies in the histology and cytotechnology
sections of the pathology laboratory, in which tissue specimens and
cell preparations, respectively, are evaluated. These two choices usually require
additional specialized training, and it is possible for technicians to transition
into the pathology department, as some of the skills practiced by technicians and
technologists are directly transferrable to the pathology section.
Most job opportunities exist in hospitals and clinics. Other good job opportunities
exist in government and pharmaceutical research laboratories and in
the armed forces laboratories, where both civilians and military personnel work
side by side. Reference laboratories (where smaller laboratories send seldomperformed
tests) and POLs are other potential sources of employment. Education,
sales, and training for users of manufactured equipment offer good job
opportunities with excellent pay and benefits.
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