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Medical Lab Technician Careers
Are you interested in becoming a lab technician?
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Are you interested in working in the healthcare field? Do you want a career that enables you to help others? Do you prefer to start working sooner rather than later? If you answered “yes” to these questions, you should look into becoming a medical lab technician.
With the medical technician field, there are a number of specific jobs that require a high level of expertise. For example, a phlebotomist is a lab technician or nurse that takes a patient’s blood sample for further analysis. A sonographer is a lab medical technician who performs ultrasound tests on certain patients.
The training involved for most of these medical technicians generally takes no longer than two years. There are a number of vocational and technical schools that offer medical technician associate degree or certificate programs. These schools provide the practical training you’ll need to get a job immediately after graduation.
Medical technicians generally work either with patients, or in a lab. The conditions for those technicians who work with patients are much similar to those of a nurse. They’ll generally have to work in shifts around the clock, and they may have to deal with very sick people. Lab technicians tend to also work in shifts, and they usually are under the supervision of a lab technologist or head laboratory scientist. Medical laboratories are often housed in or near a hospital or medical clinic.
Next: What type of training do you need to become a lab technician?