Is Medical Laboratory Tech an Ideal Career for You?

A medical laboratory tech is a new field. It’s a great profession that lets you work in the healthcare industry.

There are tons of schools out there that offer medical tech programs. Each course lets you monitor treatments, test samples, study blood cells, and input test results in patient’s records, among others.

To accomplish your task, you will need to use microscopes and other laboratory equipment.

But is this career the right one for you?

Work in a healthcare industry with little patient contact

This is the right career for you if you want to work in this industry but you don’t want to work be in contact with patients all the time.

Most of the time, you’ll be analyzing and testing fluids inside the laboratory. You’ll still face patients but you’ll spend most of your working hours in the lab determining the real reason of a patient’s illness.

Flexible

Medical laboratory tech requires a person to be flexible. Medical tech programs will teach you how to multi-task. By this it means that you will need to know how to run a pregnancy test while you conduct a urinalysis. You also have to check patient’s blood count.

Essentially, you will run all samples until the end of your shift. When you work in a smaller hospital, you will be the medical tech and the phlebotomist. Your employer may also require you to perform other things, such as x-rays.

With strong communication skills

Medical laboratory tech must have excellent communication skills. You may think that this profession will not allow you to work with a medical team.

But the truth is that you are part of a medical team, even though you spend most of your time in a lab.

You’ll need excellent communication skills because you need to explain some procedures to the patients.

You may also need to compare notes with your colleagues or report test results.

Keep in mind that miscommunication will result in misdiagnosis. And this may lead to a malpractice lawsuit, if worse comes to worst.

With proper communication skills, you can easily convey accurate results to the doctors of your patients.

Have strong interest in science

To work as a medical laboratory tech, you must have a strong background in physiology and chemistry. Medical tech programs in various schools will help you understand chemical compositions and interactions.

Learning these things can be very exciting for those who are interested in science. If you don’t have that interest, you might not find this career fulfilling.

But it does not mean that you have to be an expert in science. A medical laboratory tech profession will only require you to be knowledgeable about science. To learn more about it, you need to take medical tech programs.

If you can relate to all of these things, then you might be ready to have a career as a medical laboratory tech. but you must first consider taking medical tech programs. This career may also lead to taking up medicine and becoming a medical doctor.

In the Philippines, there are many schools that offer medical tech programs. One of them is San Pedro College in Davao City.