Clinical Laboratory Specialist

Duties and Responsibilities:  Clinical Laboratory Science, also called Medical Technology, is the health profession that provides laboratory information and services needed for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Clinical Laboratory Scientists perform a variety of laboratory tests, ensure the quality of the test results, explain the significance of laboratory tests, evaluate new methods and study the effectiveness of laboratory tests. Examples of laboratory tests performed by Clinical Laboratory Scientists include:

o    the detection of the abnormal cells that cause leukemia

o    the analysis of cardiac enzyme activity released during a heart attack

o    the identification of the type of bacteria causing an infection

o    the detection of DNA markers for genetic diseases

Salary: $64,000

Education: Clinical laboratory supervisors, managers, administrators and directors. Clinical laboratory specialists working in areas such as microbiology, hematology, blood bank, chemistry, molecular biology/DNA, histocompatiblity, virology, immunology/serology, stem cell/bone marrow labs and flow cytometry.

Reflection: Do you think you would like to be one? Why? Why not?

I think I wouldn't want to be one because to me it doesn't really look interesting.