A Complete Overview of Being a Medical Laboratory Technician
One of the career choices you have in the healthcare field is to become a medical laboratory technician. This is a great option if you enjoy lab work rather than working one-on-one with patients and want to get started working in the medical world fairly quickly. But want exactly will you do as a medical laboratory technician? Let’s take a look at what it means to work in this position.
Medical Laboratory Technician Specialties
Earning a degree to become a medical laboratory technician takes about two years and requires you to pass a national certification examination to start working in this kind of position. You education will focus on a number of laboratory skills, but to better prepare you to work as a medical laboratory technician, most colleges have students choose from one of five different specialties:
- blood banking
- chemistry
- hematology
- immunology
- microbiology
If your educational program does not allow you to specialize, your can also get on-the-job training in many cases, specializing over the course of your career.
Daily Tasks as a Medical Laboratory Technician
Once you graduate and begin working in this field, what will your daily tasks be like? Although every position is different, as an entry-level medical laboratory technician, you’ll likely work assisting medical laboratory scientists other upper-level employees as well as working to record and organize data. As you advance in the field, you could also perform lab tasks using chemicals, instruments like microscopes, and more to help diagnose and treat medical issues in patients based on your specialty. In some cases, especially if you go back to school for more education, you can also take on leadership roles within your laboratory or work in health informatics, where you’ll work more closely with record storage and sharing.
Job Outlook
Becoming a medical laboratory technician is a great choice for those who want job security and tons of opportunities over the course of the next several years. As the population continue to get older due to advanced in medicine and the aging baby boomer generation, workers in all areas in the healthcare including medical laboratories. The job outlook is great and best of all, you can earn a fairly high salary in this field with only a short education.