Medical Technicians

Emergency medical technician jobs or EMT constitutes one of the most important jobs carried out by such technicians. However the aspirants for building up their career with such jobs should know a bit about the job of such technicians.

Basic Duties

Basic responsibilities of the EMT is to provide efficient as well as immediate health care to those who are critically ill or injured patients and also transporting them to appropriate medical facilities.

EMP Job Step By Step

Having a step by step description of the emergency medical technician jobs would help the aspirant candidate to choose the way to build up the career effectively in the profession.

1. On receipt of the emergency call; the technician would drive the ambulance to the location of the patient either critically ill or victim of accident;
2. In doing so he or she will use the most expeditious routes depending on both traffic and weather conditions;
3. He or she will size up the scene to determine the scene is safe;
4. Mechanism of injuries or nature of illness should be determined along with the total number of patients;
5. Determine the nature and extent of illness and injuries and establish the priorities for required emergent cares; and
6. Basing on the assessment will render emergency medical cares to patient depending on which age group such patient belongs to.

Numerous Technical Tasks

In addition to these generalized tasks the medical technician jobs also include numerous technical tasks that are to be accomplished including both pre-hospital health care and simple and multiple trauma controls. Such tasks could be controlling hemorrhage, shock, bandaging wounds, and also immobilization of painful, swollen, as well as deformed extremities in the patient and after the treatment and in course of it reassuring such patient.

Emergency medical technician jobs offer great prospects for the job seekers and a person undergoing quality training and certification is likely to earn good remuneration in the process.

Among the benefits derived by obtaining a quality medical technician certification include –

1. Better job prospects;
2. High salary earnings;
3. Respect in the society; and
4. Confidence in career building.

Thus it is necessary for the prospective candidate to obtain a certification from a reputable and reliable source to make it good in the career.

Industry Standards

Basically the medical technician certification must conform to the industrial standards and for this purpose should choose certifications like those awarded by the ASCP Board of Certification which is functioning since 1928 or the American Medical Technologists functioning since 1939 and such others. Certification by industry standard institutes offers better job prospects and bigger paychecks for the candidates.

What to Look For

Some of the aspects of the certification are important for the candidates. For instance;

1. Certification should have national and international recognition;
2. Most coveted are the industry “gold standard” certifications;  and
3. It should have helped the candidate to develop his or her skill levels substantially.

Varieties of Certifications

A wide variety of medical technician certifications are there and each of these certifications is aimed at preparing the trainee in a particular aspect of medical profession.  Some of the most popular certifications are –

1. Cardiovascular technician certifications;
2. Dialysis technicians;
3. Emergency medical technicians;
4. Medical lab technicians;
5. Radiology and ultrasound technicians; and
6. Surgical technician certifications.

Job Based Certifications

Popular medical technician certifications can also be job based such as –

1. Clinical laboratory technician certification and the job is analyzing specimens, running tests, and recording results;
2. Medical records and health information technician certification and the job is preparation of charts and health record of the patients;
3. Pharmacy technician certification and the related job is filling out prescription and answering questions related to them and health issues;
4. Radiological and X-Ray technicians certifications;
5. Surgical technician’s certification; and
6. Ultrasound technician’s certification, among others.

Whatever career the candidates might choose; a good certification is essential for pursuing the career.

Ambits of medical science are enormous and almost every sector in it offers substantial opportunities for building up career. Most people do not have the correct idea about the medical technician careers and visualize doctors and nurses treating and attending patients in hospitals and clinics. They fail to realize that there is a big network working behind the scene to help out these people working in the frontline.

Tasks Accomplished by Medical Technicians

Usually medical technicians perform a variety of tasks. Most important among them are –

Carrying out a wide variety of clinical tests;

Research and analysis to find out the results of such tests;

Tests include research and analysis of blood, urine, stool, sputum, and any such component to find out presence of bacteria or harmful elements;

•             Checking blood sugar, cholesterol, and such other levels; and

•             Some technicians take care of maintenance of equipments like the electro cardiogram, laser machines, and other sophisticated equipments used in hospital clinics.

Thus, medical technical careers could be that of testing, maintenance, or any other job relating to hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, or on the move in ambulances and camps and even relating to machineries.

Other Tasks

In addition to the tasks of analyzing and testing; technical assistants in hospitals, clinics, and health care units also inoculate fertilized eggs, maintain laboratories and equipments, and prepare vaccines. One of the most important laboratories is those in the blood banks where collected blood is stored in a secure and safe sterilized environment.

Career Prospects

Numerous jobs are available for prospective candidates to build up their medical technician careers. Obviously, the candidate will need necessary qualification and training and hence it is necessary to set up the goal before deciding on the education to be taken. A bachelor’s degree in medical or life science from medical technician school or college would be necessary for having the job of regular technician. On the other hand one can have health information technician’s job with a simple associate degree.

Careers can also be built up as pharmacy technician filling out prescriptions and dispensing medications or as medical technologist taking care of the equipments.

Benefits of certification

If you wish to succeed in medical career, then it is beneficial to become a certified Medical lab & laboratory technician. With the medical field becoming more competitive and challenging, it is better to look out for good career prospective. If you have a certification, then this will be an advantage for you. Some employers might also as you to produce your evidence of certification as well as training. Once you become certified, you can get good opportunities and can get ahead in your career to find better offers.

Kinds of specialization area and tasks

If you are a certified Medical lab & laboratory technician, then you will supervise the blood type matching for the purpose of transfusion. You will also have to perform the task of examining drug levels in blood for determining the response of a patient to a particular kind of treatment. Another important thing is that, your specialization will cover areas like:

• Microbiology
• Chemistry
• Hematology
• Immunology
• Blood Banking
• Cytotechnology
• Virology

Work opportunities and difference between lab technician and lab technologist

As a Medical lab & laboratory technician, you might have to initiate your career in a private laboratory. However, you can also work in a community hospital or acute care clinic. When you gain more experience in this field, you will get more choices. You can also consider the option of taking up a job in public health department. It is better to concentrate on research & development for better career opportunity. If you are certified, then you might have to report straight to a medical lab technologist. A lab technologist has more extensive and wider educational qualification as compared to a lab technician. A technologist is also more experienced and can easily handle complicated procedures and lab examinations. Either you can specialize in a specific field or you can focus as a lab generalist.

Specialization area and job duties

If you wish to take up a job that includes various job duties and is not limited to a monotonous routine work, then you should become a Medical assistant technician. These technicians are not only responsible for rendering clinical duties, but also have to carry out administrative or clerical duties. The kind of tasks that they have to perform might vary from one facility to another. These technicians specialize in specific medicine area such as:

• Rehabilitation
• Sports medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Podiatry

Clinical and clerical duties

When it comes to clinical duties, these include preparing the patients for the treatment or examination, obtaining pulse, temperature, and blood pressure, helping the doctor in examination and administering medication as well. These technicians also help in performing phlebotomy as well as electrocardiograms, and medical lab procedures. The clerical duties that a Medical assistant technician has to perform also vary greatly. The assistant technician has to schedule and receive the patient, maintain his or her medical reports, handle the phone calls, and take the responsibility of collections, insurance claims and billing. If the technician works in a small facility, then he might be a generalist, whereas in a large healthcare facility, the work of the assistant technician can be either clinical or clerical or even a blend of both.

Working conditions

Talking about the working surrounding of a Medical assistant technician, he or she might be employed in medical clinics, hospitals, doctor’s offices, or health maintenance institutions. These technicians normally work for about forty hours in a week, which might also include weekends. The work place is usually very clean and even air-conditioned. At some places, they need to wear a uniform, and they also get stipend for their work. The working hours are flexible and some employers also provide lucrative fringe benefits to the technicians. This makes the job even more exciting.

Give the first help

It is not always possible to get to a hospital when there is an emergency. However, with the aid of Emergency Medical Technicians, it is possible to avoid unfortunate consequences because of any sudden accident or any other problem. These technicians are the first people who help to stabilize the condition of patients. These technicians also carry out all the medical procedures required to maintain a patient’s condition. The work and scope of the emergency personnel are different in different jurisdictions. In general, these technicians work with the ambulance service. They also work with fire fighters as well as the police.

Kinds of equipments used

The Emergency Medical Technicians use special kind of equipment like backboards. These are used for:

• Immobilizing patients prior to positioning them on the stretcher
• Securing the patients in ambulance for carrying then to a nearby medical facility

These technicians normally work as a group. When they take a patient to the hospital, one of the technicians drive the vehicle, and the other one monitors the vital signs of the patient and also provide the required care. A few technicians also work in helicopter’s fight squad for transporting the patients quickly to the trauma center.

The complete work of these technicians

The work of the Emergency Medical Technicians does not end with transporting the patient to the medical facility, as they also have to report their actions and observations to the staff of the emergency department. Some of the technicians also put forward extra emergency treatment for the patients. After every trip, the paramedics and the technicians record all the details of the trip, replace the used supplies, and also check equipments, which they have used. In case, the patient they were carrying has any contagious disease, then it is their duty to decontaminate the ambulance and then report such cases to their authority. Other duties that these technicians perform are based on their training and qualification level.

The medical field is governed by certain rules and standards that must be adhered to at all times. This is especially important especially when medical technicians are faced with emergency situations and are required to make judgment calls. In such cases, when things go wrong, a technician will be required to account for every action they took or decision they made. A medical technicians guide contains such rules and standards of care.

Defense

When a life is lost, for instance, there needs to be proof that the death was not caused by carelessness or lack of skill. As such, the medical technicians guide is a handy tool to ensure that technicians know what needs to be done in specific situations. Thus, when you are required to defend yourself, and you have followed the medical technicians guide to the letter, then you will be free of the responsibility of the unfortunate occurrence.

Applicability

A medical technicians guide should be in the possession of every medical technician who does not compromise on healthcare. Depending on where you practice your profession, there is a medical technicians guide that is applied. This may be national, regional or even international in some cases. Such guide will define the roles of the medical technician, and the qualifications that are required for the profession.

Training

A medical technicians guide may sometimes be designed for a specific area of the profession. For instance, there are guides that are used specifically as a guide for training an emergency medical technician, or paramedic. Training a medical technician is also a critical part of the medical field, and thus there are educational standards that must be kept to in order to endure that those who are joining the field are well equipped with the kind of skills that are pertinent in saving lives.

Recent studies showed that the average age of the medical technologist was the late 40’s and almost 50. This was a very worrying indication, but at the same time, it means that the career prospects for this class of professionals are very encouraging. This figure, which was derived from a study carried out in the US, is attributed to the fact that medical technologist education programs were on the decline. As such, this led to an increase in demand for these professionals. In addition, there are a low number of young scholars who succeed in the field, increasing the demand further.

Earnings

However, the paradox, according to the study, was that a medical technologist does not earn as much as other professions in the medical field. However, as this comparison was made with other medical professions, it does not mean that they earn less than other professions in general. Careers in the medical field are generally well-paying, and while a medical technologist career is not the best in the medical field, it is performing well in comparison to most other regular professions.

Benefits

There are other benefits of this medical profession. One is that with a degree in medical technology, you are assured that your job is secure. Because of the high demand for these professionals, it is unlikely that any medical technologist will be in a position to lose their jobs for reasons such as inability to get paid or when an institution is letting go of some of their staff.

Other careers

Another advantage that a medical technologist has is that it can pave the way into another career, such as Pharmacy or Physician. The training that the medical technologist gets is well-rounded, and they are able to perform a great number of medical tasks in different situations.

Complete your training online

There is no need to roam here and there in search of jobs, as you can now you can choose an attractive career option with proper Medical technician training. Nowadays, you can even complete your training online, with the help of the online colleges. If you worry about the reputation and accreditation of the colleges that offer online programs for medical technicians, then you can rest assured with the quality and the honesty of the reputed colleges. Apart from the ease of search, you also get many other benefits from such colleges. These include:

• You can compare and examine all the online training programs for medical technicians and can decide whether a particular training program is suitable for you or not.
• You will also get different alternatives while pursuing your training online

Points to consider

No matter whether you complete you complete your Medical technician training online or from other college, you will definitely gain knowledge about many different areas depending on the area you choose. If you wish to become a successful medical technician, then a recognized training program can provide you the skills required to begin your career effectively. You can even complete certificate programs online within a few months. The coursework that you will get online will depend on your desired area and the level of your education.

Make sure that the program is best for you

When browsing through the list of online Medical technician training programs, you should make sure that the training program suits your educational requirements. Even if you wish to become an emergency medical technician, you will easily find accredited colleges that provide you the required training. Before enrolling in any of the program, you should ensure that the training program is appropriate for you, as the learning style of different students is also very different. Some learns quickly from online training programs and some find the real colleges more suitable.

Importance of schools and colleges

Finding Medical technician schools & colleges in your state is not very difficult now, as a number of community colleges and other institutions have been established recently.  With the rise in the number of candidates taking up medical technician jobs, there has been a significant rise in the number of colleges in the last few years. Proper education and training is an essential requirement for becoming a medical technician. This is why the role played by these schools and colleges is very significant.

Need of schools and colleges

You cannot directly work under a doctor or physician, as this works calls for a lot of skills, which can be acquired through proper training only. Therefore, if you wish to help doctors in treating the patients Medical technician schools & colleges will be your first step. Once you have completed the study program and training program, you can easily be a part of the fastest developing health care areas. The schools will teach you all the skills, which you need for both clinical as well as administrative works. You should learn different skills, as the job responsibility of a medical technician will differ from one place to the other.

Things to remember

If you wish to accelerate your career, then you should choose an accredited college out of the array of Medical technician schools & colleges. Just browse through the directory of colleges in your state and you will come across many of them to choose from. Some of the things that you should remember include:

• Keep you interest and the accreditation of the college in mind, when you make your final pick.
• You should also go through the list of healthcare programs, and the areas of study that these colleges offer.

You can also go for an online search and can narrow down your choices by searching a college according to your location.