If the paramedical or allied healthcare field attracts you and you’d like to make your career saving lives and helping people, being a doctor is not your only choice. If you have been thinking, how else you can help patients without being a doctor, here is an awesome career opportunity.
A Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT), also called the clinical laboratory technician, is equipped and trained to work in hospitals, diagnostic labs, doctor’s offices and healthcare centres.
We are sure the next thing you would like to know is that – What does a Medical Laboratory Technician actually do?
Given below is a brief of the common Job Duties & Responsibilities of a Medical Lab Technician.
The duties of a Medical Laboratory technician are as follows:
- Collect, store and preserve samples of blood and other bodily fluids
- Perform analysis and examination on bodily fluids
- Determine the chemicals in the Urine and check their levels
- Match blood samples for effective transfusions
- Test the blood for drug levels
- Blood bank management
- Lab equipment maintenance for cleaning and maintaining the equipment
- The diagnostic tests performed on the samples help the doctors confirm their diagnosis and devise a treatment plan
- Supply chain management
- Biomedical waste management
- Quality controlbased on NABL regulations
Medical lab testing isn’t always about diagnosis too, it also calls for checking drug levels in the blood. This is done to judge the response of the patient to an administered medicine or a treatment plan.
Job opportunities for a medical laboratory technician:
- A medical laboratory technician can find a job at:
- Government or private hospitals
- Diagnostic labs
- Clinics or nursing homes
- Doctor offices
- Government and private medical colleges and universities
Given the nature of workplace and your job, medical technology can often call for working overtime, in shifts or over the weekends. This is part of one of a respected healthcare industry and you need to have the ‘Seva bhav’ to be a part of it.
Skills that a Medical laboratory technician requires:
The career of an MLT is demanding and requires various tasks to be performed on a daily basis. Here are some skills that an MLT must have:
- Communication skills to understand the patients and communicate effectively
- Emotional strength to lend support and patient listening
- Strength and stamina to move patients to collect the samples
- Comfort with bodily fluids such as urine and blood for testing
- No qualms in poking needles and the patience to deal with squealing patients
- Eye for detail
- Systematic approach and organization skills in order to store and segregate samples properly
- Basic computer skills for maintaining records and preparing reports
Education & Training required to become a Medical Lab Tech
The role and responsibilities of a Medical Laboratory technician require a fair amount of training and education. In India, you can take up a specialized course after completing 12th standard or graduation. These courses to become a Medical Laboratory technician are the right blend of theory training classes and practical internship at a healthcare setup. Both the components work towards inculcating the skills required for a real-time MLT job.
You may also need to take up short-term soft skills training or a computer proficiency course. Watch the video to know more about this career.
Working as a medical laboratory technician:
While some countries require medical laboratory technicians to be licensed to work in healthcare setups, whereas only some states in India require you to register at the paramedical council of India in order to be eligible for a job or your private practice as a medical laboratory technician. Most jobs require a training certificate and an internship experience at a reputed hospital.
Earning capacity as a medical laboratory technician:
Once you are a trained MLT, you stand to get a fair paying job in any hospital or laboratory. You can also earn as a freelancer or setting up your own lab. The earning potential increases with experience in the field.
How to become a medical laboratory technician in India:
You can take up a course at the Tech Mahindra SMART Academy for Healthcare to be a trained medical laboratory technician. The thorough training involves training on diagnostic procedures by testing blood and other body fluids. The readings and interpretations from these analyses help doctors understand the problem and design the further course of action for the patient. With requisite infrastructure and trained faculty, Tech Mahindra SMART Academy for Healthcare strive to offer the best in class training that helps training proficient MLTs capable of securing a well-paying job. The institute is equipped with labs and equipment for training like in an actual hospital. Not just that, the course includes basic English, Personality Development and IT skills required to get you a job to start your career in the medical field.
We at Tech Mahindra SMART Academies strive to support the cause of creating world-class healthcare professionals. Should you wish to join our Academy, speak to a career counselor on 1800-270-2022 or book a call back on https://www.smart-academy.in/course/medical-laboratory-technician/
