Medical Lab Assistant

Medical lab assistants, as the name implies, assist with laboratory work. It is one of the fastest growing occupations, and the growth of this profession is not expected to slow anytime soon. With new medical advances come new ways to test for diseases and, consequently, new lab assistants to handle the increased workload.

As a lab assistant, you will have a wide variety of work environments from which to choose. Medical lab assistants work in hospitals, businesses, most types of healthcare facilities, and public and private laboratories.

Duties of Medical Lab Assistants

Lab assistants perform a variety of duties within the medical field. Some of their duties include:

• Preparing specimens for laboratory testing
• Manually testing specimens
• Examining the specimens for the presence, or the absence, of specified cells and other biological matter

Also called medical technicians or clinical lab techs, medical lab assistants can also specialize within the medical field. For instance, they can choose to perform lab testing only in the pharmacy, hematology, or microbiology departments.

Training and Education

Some employers train their own medical laboratory assistants, but that practice is becoming rare. Most lab assistants have either an associate’s degree in medical technology or a certificate of completion from a junior or community college or a vocational school.

Before enrolling in a training program, make sure that the school is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP), the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools (ABHES) or the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences (NAACLS). Accreditation from any one of these agencies attests that the school’s program of study meets at least the minimum educational requirements that you’ll need to work in this field.

After you graduate from medical technology school, state law may require you to become a licensed or a registered medical laboratory assistant. To determine if your state has such a requirement, check with the department of health in your geographical area.

You may also choose to become certified. Although not a requirement to work as a medical laboratory technician, certification will give you more and better job opportunities. One of the organizations that certified medical lab technicians is the American Medical Technologists. Contact them for more information about their certification process.

Skills the You’ll Need

Because a laboratory medical assistant analyzes minute and delicate specimens, there is a particular skill set that is essential for you to have—or cultivate—if you expect to be an effective laboratory medical assistant.

You will need:

• Analytical skills
• Computer sills
• Manual Dexterity
• Good color vision
• Attention to detail
• Ease under pressure

Salary

The salary range for medical lab assistants can vary quite a bit depending on experience, geographical location, and educations. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s 2004 report, the median salary for those in this field (in May of 2004) was $30,840. But 10 percent of medical lab techs made more than $45,000.

Advancement Opportunities

The big benefit of pursuing a career, as a medical lab assistant is that it opens up advancement opportunities. For example, with some further training, you could become a medical laboratory technician; their lab testing procedures are much more advanced and extensive than that of medical lab assistants.

As there will probably never be a shortage of either medical laboratory technicians or of medical laboratory assistants, your professional future is secure.