Medical Technician How to Become a Medical Technician | Medical Technologist Introduction:

The term medical technician can be used for those people who tend to work in labs, the people who opt to become dental hygienists, emergency medical workers, helpers in surgery, pharmacy and veterinary assistant. Their job depends upon the career path they choose and specialty of the degree of medical technician. They are also known as allied health professionals. Certified Medical Technicians prepare specimens and take the medical tests related to the labs, as by the instructions of the physicians and medical technologists. The job responsibilities of a medical technician are very tough in the area of diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of patients from the diseases. The American Medical Technologists (AMT) provides a designation of MT (AMT) to Medical technologists and MLT (AMT) to Medical Lab Technologists.

Types of Medical Technicians:

Some very basic type of the medical technician includes; the Cardiovascular technicians. A medical technician in cardiology may perform echocardiograms, vascular ultrasound, and can also assist in cardiac catheterizations. A second type of technicians is the Dialysis technicians. They deal with dialysis; they handle the equipment and can also prepare patient’s report accordingly. Thirdly there are the Emergency medical technicians (EMTs). The EMT Technicians deals with fire departments or ambulance companies. Giving emergency services to the needy people and help them by giving any first aid to medication and support for patients with severe medical conditions. Then there are the Medical lab technicians. These technicians work in the labs and perform various duties ranging from taking tests, doing the evaluation of skin samples and phlebotomy. Then, there are the Radiology Technician and ultrasound technicians (x-ray technician); these technicians take the x-rays, CAT (computerized axial tomography) scans, MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging) and also ultrasound. Then most importantly, there are the surgical technicians. These are the technicians who perform all the tasks related to the surgical environment. Lastly, there do exist other medical technicians include dental hygiene, pharmacy support, and veterinary technicians as well.

Further categorization:

Many hospital technicians have a two year degree, though most have attended a four year college, and some have a master’s degree. There are several colleges that offer medical technician degrees. Vocational and many Technical institutes do provide skill training in this field. There are three types of Allied Health Professionals, Independent AHPs; given authority by the state Gov to work independently, Dependent AHPs; they are supposed to work independently under a licensed Independent professional and the last ones are also the dependent AHPs; who cannot provide service independently. The physician assistants, radiology technicians, cardiac technicians etc are all the POTENTIAL dependent technicians.

Career development:

Throughout their career, they need to continue their studies for the up gradation of the degree. The job outlook is very strong for them. Firstly the students need to give some certifying exams. The American Medical Technologists (AMT) certification, the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) certification and the National Credentialing Agency for Laboratory Personnel’s (NCA) certification offer a diverse credential. ASCP Certification allows to add “MT” after person’s name whereas persons trained by the NCA use “CLS” (Clinical Laboratory Scientist). Some allied health professions prove their skills through diplomas, certified credentials, and continuing education. Other allied health professions require no special training or credentials and are trained for their work by their employer through on-the-job training. Doctoral training is not the only avenue for the advance research in this field. Training at Master’s level must be explored well. Many allied health jobs are considered career jobs because of the opportunities for advancement within specific fields. Medical technologist’s certificates issued by CGFNS in 07 were 697 and a growth pattern is to be seen. 12% change is to be seen in the employment growth from the year 2008-09.

Salary of the Medical Technicians:

It a person is an experienced medical technician then, there salary ranges from $22,000 to $50,000. The workweek for them is around 40 hrs long. Part time jobs are also in existence in this field. Annual earnings of medical technicians were up to $29040 according to a data in 2002. Technicians working in hospitals earn more comparatively.

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