Laboratory Professionals Member Community

Good morning I agree with you. It would be nice to also not forget about the Phlebotomist as well. We are also in the labs and part of the team. We would like to be able to stay abreast of what is new and upcoming in the lab. 

It's a valid concern that continuing education and maintaining certification can be costly and often not fully tailored to the needs of medical laboratory technicians (MLT) or medical laboratory scientists (MLS). While certification is crucial for maintaining standards and ensuring that professionals stay updated with the latest developments, it's important to balance this with accessibility and relevance to the specific roles.

In Tennessee we are also required to have 24hours of continuing education every 2years.  Our lab uses American Proficiency Institute for our proficiency testing.  API offers free CME every year.  Through API I am able to be compliant with ASCP and the State for my licensing and credentialing. 

👍 to all. Here's what I have witnessed. Theory and didactics are all in school and to be witnessed in application during rotations. Theory and didactics are more used behind the scenes during research or when working on some kind of policy. A big reason actual working environments seem so far from theory and didactics is because the theories and didactics used in research has already generated results that has been used to craft regulations, guidelines, policies, etc... all the way from government to facility level, which are then used to regulate how things are done, which standardizes the work done.

Training from facility to facility is different not only because of different instruments, but also due to the people, workflow, and local government and facilty specific regulations, guidelines, policies, etc... 

Standardizing training requires a whole separate different level on how to train. This would be beyond the regular teaching a tech or student tech the skills of how run tests and identify problem results. This is a tech teaching a 2nd tech the skills of how to teach a 3rd tech, especially if that 3rd tech is a fresh graduate.

The most difficult thing about learning is that learning comes more from failure than success, and the medical space would be one of the worst if not already the worst place for failure. It takes years of research, testing, failure, and countless lives before that one major revolutionary breakthrough success. And that is even when research is under the most favorable and supportive of circumstances.

Don't get me wrong. That wasn't meant to be cold water. I am posting because I want what is good for techs, patients, etc... It would be great all-around if training can be done more efficiently w/o as much confusion. I actually would like to see how such training could and would come together. Shall this post be kept going?

I want to see people who want to train students and new techs. A standard learning system would be difficult to create and not impossible. There are standards for learning and standards that each lab has to follow. However, finding techs to train new employees and students with grace and patience has been lacking from my experience.