CLINICAL LAB SCIENEC

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ESSENTIALS OF CLINICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE
extent of education and training the laboratory workers acquire. For this reason, it
is important that laboratory workers be ambassadors for the profession.
A modern hospital laboratory more closely resembles a business with a
CEO (pathologist) who directs and manages a laboratory manager or managers;
it sometimes includes a technical chief who is also a technologist and works
directly to solve technical issues. Laboratories have evolved over a period of a
little more than 100 years to highly sophisticated and automated facilities.
The organization of a laboratory is affected for the most part by the size of
the hospital and the laboratory. Many of these laboratories complete thousands
of analyses per day and are staffed by technologists who may also have specialty
degrees, licenses, or other certification. Laboratories are highly regulated departments
that employ large numbers of clinical scientists who are highly skilled and
educated. It is estimated that 70% to 80% of the diagnoses for patients with
diseases are diagnosed on the basis of laboratory tests. The future is bright for
this profession, and the laboratories will continue to advance along with medical
science.
Review Questions
1. In your opinion, list some factors that contribute to contracting infectious
diseases.
2. Name some things that may be visualized by observing them microscopically.
3. What are some basic differences between a modern laboratory and an early
laboratory?
4. Why is it important that the laboratory worker of today be recognized as a
professional?
5. What has occurred on a number of occasions that has led to increased
awareness of the value of laboratory procedures and the value of being able
to practice medicine in the field around the world?
6. Name several locations where laboratory procedures are performed. Not all
those who perform laboratory procedures will be clinical laboratory technicians
and technologists.
7. Name the four general departments in the clinical laboratory.
8. What level of laboratory worker is required to supervise a department?
9. What are some attributes a medical laboratory technician or technologist
must possess to be effective in the workplace?
10. What are some of the reasons that there is no consistency in the credentialing
of laboratory workers?
11. In your own words, describe the hierarchy of a medical laboratory in a hospital
setting.
12. Compare the roles of the clinical and the anatomic pathologist positions.
13. Name the major types of specimens that are tested in a clinical laboratory.
14. In your own words, why are the functions of the phlebotomist extremely
important as the first step in performing a procedure?
15. What are some important decisions that may be required of a technician or
technologist with regard to the methodology to use for performing tests?
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