Medical Laboratory Scientist?

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I am currently an RN, but I'm not passionate about my work. I am seriously considering going back to school to get my BS in medical laboratory science. Does anyone here have any experience with this field? What are you thoughts? It would take me probably a year of schooling to get the prereqs out of the way, and then 2 solid years of upper grad work after that (and I most likely would have to quit my job). I currently work in med-surg on days. Like I said, it's a good job, I enjoy the people I work with, but my passion is labwork.

Has anyone else here made a similar career move? I just found this board so I haven't had time to search through all the posts...

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Does anyone have any thoughts on this at all?

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Does anyone have any thoughts on this at all?

First 50 minutes is probably not enough time to get a response on a fairly obscure subject.

As far as the job I would recommend going to shadow someone and find out what its about first. Its a very broad field but there are elements of taskwork (ie running the chemistry analyzer etc). There are also some very technical fields such as blood bank and micro. Part of the issue is that while the lab may seem fun it loses some appeal when its a job. reading 1 or 2 peripheral smears kind of fun. Reading 1000 not so much.

In case you haven't read up on the job much here is the Wiki which seems to be reasonably accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_technologist

Also as the Wiki mentions you will probably take a 25-40% pay cut from RN salary.

David Carpenter, PA-C

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I would definetly shadow someone before I put all the time & money into changing. I was an MLT(associates degree) for 8 yrs! It was fun for a while, but it does lose its appeal. You are stuck in a lab going over 1000's of smears, urine tests, running analyzers, blood typing, etc. There is no excitement. I am currently going back to get my RN. Good luck in whatever you decide.

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Specializes in Cardiac/Med Surg.

I left the lab in a 750 bed hospital level 1 trauma center to go to Nursing 2 years ago and ove it. I left because I missed the patient contact (when lab used to draw the blood) and everything is automated, I loved the manual testing in the old days. I started in 1980 in the lab..most labs are 8 hour shifts and I wanted 12 hour. I am very happy with my new career and if you go to lab make sure your have your BS and have to be liscensed in all 5 areas as a technologist. Good luck to you..

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