Health Care vs Patient Care Experience - Lab Work

[gopherpig]

Would you say a clinical lab tech position should be under health care experience as opposed to patient care experience?

[MT2PA]

HCE.  I had 7 years as an MT and the only PCE I counted were years I did phlebotomy.  Typical lab work has no patient contact.

 

(It's great HCE!  Just not really PCE).

[gopherpig]

That's what I was thinking - thanks!!

[bluepillow]

Hi! I have a related question. My current blood bank technologist position includes phlebotomy for potential Rhogam candidates, which is obv patient contact. I listed it as direct patient contact for that reason. What do you guys think?

[cop to pa]

Hi! I have a related question. My current blood bank technologist position includes phlebotomy for potential Rhogam candidates, which is obv patient contact. I listed it as direct patient contact for that reason. What do you guys think?

Were you directly involved in patient care through direct patient contact as a primary part of your job? If yes, then it's PCE. You know better than us.

[MT2PA]

Hi! I have a related question. My current blood bank technologist position includes phlebotomy for potential Rhogam candidates, which is obv patient contact. I listed it as direct patient contact for that reason. What do you guys think?

 

To be completely honest, I'd divide the hours between PCE and HCE.  Were you drawing blood consistently for several hours a week?  Estimate how many hours for PCE.  If you just drew blood on one patient every once in a while....I'd say that's kind of a stretch for PCE.

[bluepillow]

I have other PCE so it's no biggie, but it is a part of the job description. There weren't too many per week.

[VioletFire5]

I perform phlebotomy consistently everyday for hours. I see patients all the time to the point that I know their names when I process their results. I classified my work as PCE. I also worked as a lab tech during bone marrow biopsies. My entire day was with patients drawing blood, making slides, and presenting meds during the procedure.

 

I think it depends because I know a lot of med lab sci who never see patients. If I never saw a patient but a few times a week, I would classify my work as HCE. 

[bluepillow]

I think this really depends on the school. University of Florida gives full credit to Medical Technologist while giving only 1/2 to Phlebotomist. On the other hand, University of New England gives 1/2 credit to Phlebotomist and no credit to Medical Technologist (and only half credit for EMT? strange). This is making the designations even more difficult because every lab worker's job description is different.

 

http://pap.med.ufl.edu/admissions/prerequisites-2/patient-care-experience/

 

http://www.une.edu/sites/default/files/PA%20Patient%20Care%20Experience%202016-17%20%281%29.pdf

[gopherpig]

I'm confused about the University of Florida link. It says Medical Technologist gets full credit like you said, and searching this it sounds like it is the same thing as a Clinical Lab Tech - is that right? But then right below that it says that laboratory bench work counts as health related experience. Am I not reading this right, or does Med Tech imply another position?

[bluepillow]

Who knows, really. It's so hard to classify it because every school defines it differently. On top of that the field is always highly misjudged to begin with... From what I understand many smaller hospitals use Clinical Laboratory Scientists for their specimen collections as well. It's very confusing.

 

They might be referring to academic research with the laboratory bench work? No idea.