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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Health Care

They are talking about this topic: Workforce Trends & Challenges

 

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Lab Tech: Laboratory employers are seeing similar workforce needs for technologists as nursing professions. Among the various comments, many say that technologists are playing a more prominent role in the health care team, requiring stronger soft skills. Some employers experienced a shortage of technologists while others did not.

Employer Quote Region
"I think it's getting better. True partnerships with the employers and the school. I think—in the laboratory—we've seen a great deal of success. But I think that there's still work to be done. I think that the laboratory—just in looking at the titles up there—I had to smile. I'm sure to somebody outside the lab, you look and think, 'Gosh, these people are all complex in the laboratory!' People don't understand what we do, and because of that, the majority of the applicants we get—I'll get 50 applicants per job posting—and two or three applicants will actually qualify for the position. But I'll get every biology degree and chemistry degree out there, and they don't qualify." Metro
"I still see a demand in the lab that I can't meet. We had a full-time position, and we actually had someone from another hospital in northern Minnesota call us and say, 'Hey, I have this person that—due to staffing—we have to let go.' And we had a position that was open, and he was the only qualified person that I interviewed. We hired him, and thankfully his life was such that he was able to relocate. But, yeah, I have maybe a handful of people apply for open positions, whether it's in the hospital or the clinic." Metro
"They also need to understand their role in the health care team. They don't really get the big picture of what their role is. We're starting to get more and more involved in appropriate lab utilization and being part of the care team, and there's this fear that that's really not their goal. But that really is their goal, so we need to work on that." Metro
"To me, that's a real hard thing. These new grads, they're not coming in with the level of experience. They need to hit the ground running in my lab because we don't slow down. We're going from the time they clock in until the time they walk out the door, so it's tough. It's a tough environment." Metro
"You make the time. If you want the student, you take the student. If you want them to have that practical experience, you have to give it to them. And schools can't teach that. They can't teach multi-tasking.

Question: Do you expect that to be a part of their training?

Employer: No, I expect to provide that as the employer. The position in the lab, that's my responsibility.

Question: But when somebody graduates, do you wish there were a requirement in their curriculum to have an internship?

Employe: It is. It's required by accreditation."		 Metro
"Question: Even with internship experience, new graduates are not necessarily ready to go?

Employer: No, the lab is too complex."		 Metro
"If I look at who I hire five years from now, you know, for lab testing, it's molecular, it's DNA-based, it's RNA-based. It's all of those things we learned—that I learned—as a cytotechnologist. I'm not a clinical lab scientist. The data speaks a lot to the clinical lab science portion, but there's a two-year degree, folks, called cytotechs that are extremely misaligned. We don't have enough of them, and they are a right-hand assistant to the pathologist, which is a physician leader in the lab. So, we need good folks that can sit and do that work even while their work is becoming more complicated in terms of a molecular-based level. We used to be good at diagnosing things 90 percent of the time. Now, we have to be 99 percent sure when we put that diagnosis out the door that it's good. And that only happens by a trained person. So, I look at hiring—and it's also looking at the cytotechnology workforce—and asking, 'What else can we teach those folks to do?' Because they have a certain sub-skill set that's different than a clinical lab scientist and that's different than a clinical lab tech. And there is discussion about, in the future, making that more of an advanced practice provider level, so they can do more independent judgment." Metro