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Swine Flu Highlights a Hot Job: Medical Technologist

This year’s ever-increasing surge of swine flu cases is highlighting a rarity in today’s economy: an in-demand job.

Medical technologists, scientists trained to identify diseases and other conditions under a microscope, face a more than 10 percent vacancy rate nationwide, according to the American Society of Clinical Pathology.

That’s partly because of the increased need for testing of infectious diseases, such as the swine flu that’s hit about 1 million Americans. Tampa General Hospital, home of the nation’s 20th-busiest hospital lab, will see more pressure on its staff when the traditional flu season starts this fall, lab director Dave Devine said. The lab handles 8.5 million tests a year.

“A lot of our staff, come flu season, will start working more,” he said. “Our part-timers will work more like full-time and our full-time will work more overtime because everybody has to step it up.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are 167,000 medical technologists employed today in the United States. By 2016, another 21,000 are expected to be needed to analyze fluids and tissues in hospitals and other lab settings.

Several reasons explain the shortage of medical technologists, starting with the need for a four-year bachelor’s degree and the state’s requirement that workers pass a national certification test. Preferably, a person majors in medical technology, but that’s only offered at a few colleges, including the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Tampa General’s in-house medical technology education program usually trains just a handful of students each year. Of this spring’s graduating class of five, four already have full-time jobs at the hospital, program specialist Winston Williams said. The fifth would have had an offer, if not for a move out of town, he said.

The medical technologist shortage is heightened by the additional demand for lesser-trained lab positions as the American population ages and needs more medical testing. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services predicts an additional 138,000 workers will be needed, but only 50,000 are expected to be trained in areas including phlebotomy — blood drawing — and histotechnology, the study of tissue preparation.

On average, salaries for medical technologists — about $45,000 to $57,000 a year — fall below that of comparable health care professions such as registered nursing, which pays roughly between $52,000 and $64,000 annually.

Higher profile fields, such as nursing, tend to attract more students because nurses deal directly with patients. Lindsey Graham, a medical technologist at Tampa’s CryoCell International, which processes core blood, said her work is akin to being the hub on a wheel.

“The doctors and the nurses can’t do anything without the lab,” said Graham, who discovered the field in high school and majored in the subject at an upstate New York university. Just 26, she’s never had to look for a job in her chosen field.

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