My first career choice is to become a medical laboratory technician. In this occupation, people typically run tests with biological materials, fluids, cells, blood, organisms to find out diseases or work with various chemicals related to vaccines and serums then record this information and send them to medical researchers. This type of technician requires people to have a good communicative competence since they need to work with both patients and physicians or work in a team with other technicians. People might spend all day, even nights, weekends or holidays working in the laboratory, wearing gloves, masks and lab coats for protection because there would be risks of being exposed to diseases and infections. Carefulness and exactness are the most important skills required in this area as any tiny mistake can cause dangers and problems. It’s also necessary for technicians to expert at using scientific methods and mathematical formulas to estimate, calculate collected data.
To prepare for this occupation, students need to take as many Biology and Chemistry courses as they can while taking some elective courses such as math and computer science. Therefore, I choose Biochemistry to be my major, and I am going to take four courses of Chemistry, three courses in Biology and one course of Nutrition for my school years at Pierce College. There are various schools that offer Medical Laboratory Assisting or Medical Laboratory Science program such as Pierce College Fort Steilacoom with Pre-medical technology, which I am taking to get AS-T degree; UW Seattle with Laboratory Medicine; and Heritage University with Clinical Laboratory Science. The tuition and fees are different for each school but fluctuate between $25,000 and $45,000 per full-time study year. After getting high school diploma, associate degree and training program in which people learn how to perform routine medical testing procedures, they may be qualified to work as a medical ...