Bachelor of Science in Medical Laboratory Science Technical Standards

The primary goal of the School of Health Related Professions is to provide quality instructional programs that are responsive to social and student needs and that prepare students to obtain the appropriate university degree or certificate and professional licensure, registration, or certification. In an effort to achieve this goal, the medical laboratory science program has established certain technical standards that must be possessed by all students to successfully complete the didactic, laboratory, and clinical phases of the educational program. Students must meet all requirements of the curriculum including the skills described herein for the program to obtain a bachelor of science degree in Medical Laboratory Science.

Physical and motor skills

• Move freely and safely about a laboratory.
• Reach laboratory bench tops and shelves, patients lying in hospital beds or seated in specimen collection furniture.
• Travel to numerous clinical laboratory sites for clinical experience.
• Perform moderately taxing continuous physical work, often requiring prolonged sitting over several hours.
• Maneuver phlebotomy and culture acquisition equipment to collect laboratory specimens from patients.
• Control laboratory equipment (ie., pipettes, inoculating loops, test tubes) and adjust instruments to perform laboratory procedures.
• Operate an electronic keyboard (i.e., 101-key computer keyboard) to operate laboratory instruments for calculating, recording, evaluating, and transmitting laboratory information.

Sensory skills

• Observe laboratory demonstrations of diagnostic procedures in which biological specimens (i.e., body fluids, culture materials, tissue sections, and cellular specimens) are tested for their biochemical, hematological, immunological, microbiological, and histochemical compounds.
• Characterize the color, consistency, and clarity of biological reagents.
• Employ a clinical grade binocular microscope to discriminate among fine structural and color (blue, shading, and intensity) differences of microscopic specimens.
• Read and comprehend alphanumeric text and color graphs displayed in print and on a video monitor.

Cognitive, integrative and quantitative skills

• Possess the following intellectual skills: comprehension, measurement, mathematical calculation, reasoning, integration, analysis, comparison, self-expression, and criticism.
• Be able to exercise sufficient judgment to recognize and correct performance deviations.
• Be able to comprehend spatial relationships.
• Be able to solve one or more problems within specific time frames, which are often short.

Affective, behavioral and social skills

• Follow oral and written instructions to correctly perform laboratory test procedures.
• Clearly instruct patients prior to specimen collection.
• Converse with patients effectively, confidentially, and sensitively regarding laboratory tests.
• Communicate in English with faculty members, fellow students, staff, and other health care professionals orally and in recorded format (i.e., writing, typing, graphics, telecommunication, and electronic mail).
• Be able to manage the use of time and be able to systematize actions to complete professional and technical tasks within realistic constraints.
• Possess the emotional health necessary to effectively use intellect and to exercise appropriate judgment. The student must be able to provide professional and technical services while experiencing the stresses of task-related uncertainty (i.e., ambiguous test ordering, ambivalent test interpretation), emergent demands (i.e., "stat" test orders), and a distracting environment (i.e., high noise levels, complex visual stimuli).
• Be flexible and creative and be able to adapt to professional and technical change.
• Recognize potentially hazardous materials, equipment, and situations and proceed safely to minimize risk of injury to self and nearby personnel.
• Adapt to working with unpleasant biological reagents.
• Be capable of supporting and promoting the activities of fellow students and health care professionals. Promotion of peers helps furnish a team approach to learning, task completion, problem solving, and patient care.
• Be honest, compassionate, ethical, and responsible. The student must be forthright about errors or uncertainty. The student must be able to critically evaluate own performance, accept constructive criticism, and look for ways to improve. The student must be able to evaluate the performance of fellow students and professionals and tactfully offer constructive criticism.