A medical lab technician works at a medical or clinical laboratory, and provides various technical services related to the operations of that laboratory. For example, the technician could be tasked with running tests on sample substances, performing analysis on a set of data, as well as gathering information related to the lab’s current research project. Medical lab technicians may also be tasked with more low-level duties such as collecting samples from patients, as well as preparing the samples for processing.
A high school diploma is usually enough to get hired as a medical lab technician, and the job doesn’t have any high skill requirements in general. Most of the knowledge required to practice it properly can be learned in the course of employment, and in some cases candidates may be required to undergo a short training course related to general safety when working in a laboratory environment, as well as optionally have a license for the purpose – though this is only applicable in a very small number of jurisdictions worldwide.
The technician at a medical lab can earn a sufficiently large salary with regards to the workload attached to the job. Typically, the job pays between $38,000 – $54,000, and some technicians can even earn more than that thanks to attractive bonus programs rewarding their extra effort. In more hectic periods when there’s more work to be done, medical lab technicians are also paid additionally in pretty much every case – with some small exceptions of low-profile labs.