One of the integral, but often forgotten professionals in health care and medicine is the clinical laboratory technician who performs medical lab tests. The clinical lab technician handles patient testing and provides crucial information from tests and exams that help doctors and other health care providers make diagnoses.
Here’s how to become a clinical laboratory technician.
- Check out what you’ll be doing. The scope of practice of the clinical laboratory technician varies greatly with the size of the facility where you will be working. In general, clinical laboratory technicians work under the supervision of the clinical laboratory technologist and the pathologist, a physician who specializes in the examination of bodily fluids and tissues. Work processes include collecting blood and urine specimens as well as other bodily fluids and tissues. You will prepare specimens for examination by labeling and staining specimens for the technologist or pathologist to examine. Clinical laboratory technicians run automated testing equipment, and perform simple testing on specimens, and then enter results in the patient’s record; in addition they sterilize instruments, prepare growth mediums, order supplies and keep records for laboratory accreditation. In addition, some clinical laboratory technicians specialize in working in blood bank testing procedures or in histology.
- Enroll in an accredited program. Because you will handle various machinery and will be exposed to plenty of testing procedures in your line of work, getting training in medical lab technician jobs is essential. There are various schools that provide clinical lab technician education certification, most of which are two-year programs that lead to an associate’s degree.
When enrolling in lab technician training, make sure that you consider the state or country where you want to practice as a clinical lab technician, since there are various regulations from state to state. Make sure that whatever program you enroll in is accredited by National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS). This will ensure your program will meet national standards. Some lab technicians, however, still get their training on the job, or through assistant posts. Most hired lab technicians, however, get formal educational training. - Remember to get certified. Although there are some hospitals and clinics that will accept fresh graduates, most will require you to have a certificate. There are examinations that are given by the American Medical Technologist Board and the American Society for Clinical Pathology. Being a certified clinical lab technician allows you to work in more hospitals and will help you command more competitive salaries and benefits, as compared to lab technicians who did not receive certification.
- Specialize in something. There are hundreds upon hundreds of tests that are run for various types of diseases. Specialization allows you to focus on certain tests, such as those that involve blood, those that involve tissues or those that involve cells. There are also specializations in virology for technicians who want to focus on testing for parasites, viruses and bacteria in patients. Specialization may help you get a better paying job in larger facilities.
- Go where the pay is better. The salary range is from $24,000 to $57,000. That large difference is due to size of the facility, education level, experience, specialization, certification and location. Pay tends to be better in larger facilities and on either coast.
- The job outlook is great. U.S. News and World Report lists clinical lab technicians as one of the best jobs in 2012. The job growth is expected to be around 15% between now and 2020.
To gain advisory or supervisory positions, you need to have experience in laboratories and clinics, including all of the complex machinery that are used in these offices. As a beginner clinical laboratory technician, however, you can easily get jobs in hospitals and laboratories—especially as the number of tests that are performed each year increases to meet the changes in population and the advances in medical testing. As a clinical lab technician, you will work with other professionals such as phlebotomists who focus on blood sample collection, or histotechnicians who prepare tissues for analysis and testing.