This article first appeared in The Whig Standard – Kingston, on May 15, 2002.

When they think about the health care system, people think about nurses and doctors, but behind the scenes is a large group of other health care professionals who provide doctors and nurses with medical information they need to treat their patients.

One of these professional groups is medical laboratory technologists. Without the information these folks provide, doctors are handicapped in their ability to treat their patients.

The test results that medical laboratory technologists provide include “typing” a person for organ donation, culturing a bacterial infection and identifying the optimum antibiotic to fight it. DNA testing and screening for hereditary diseases, identifying specific leukemias and cancers and running all kinds of blood and serum counts for various diseases, such as diabetes, hemophilia, arthritis and others too numerous to mention.

It takes a special type of person to have the skill level to accomplish these tasks. To become a medical laboratory technologist you need a three-year degree with some specialized courses, and you must meet the licensing requirements. In some areas, a university degree is required along with the college degree. By way of comparison, to become a nurse you need a three-year college degree or a university degree with some specialized courses and you must meet the licensing requirements. But nurses are paid substantially more than medical laboratory technologists. Which career would you choose?

The health care system is under stress, and a growing number of medical laboratory technologists are leaving the workforce. They have endured government cutbacks, resulting in difficult and cramped working conditions, poor wages, being on constant call due to staff shortages, and being short of supplies and equipment.

How many times have you seen letters to the editor thanking doctors and nurses for a patient’s care, but not mentioning other professionals who helped the doctors and nurses care for the person who wrote the letter?

These professionals deserve support from the public and government so that they will stay in the workforce and not move to the foreign countries that are trying to attract them. The workplace has to be made more attractive so students will want to fill these positions. Without these changes, we will face a crisis in which there will be no one to run the tests – and then your doctor will only be guessing.

Beverley Rostant is a medical laboratory technologist. She lives in Amherstview and is a member of The Whig Standard’s Community Editorial Board.

Reproduced by permission of the author.