SAN DIEGO–(Businesswire)–San Diego Miramar College’s Medical Laboratory Technician Training (MLTT) program has received official approval from the California Department of Public Health Laboratory Field Services, Personnel Licensing and Certification, effective September 1.
Formal accreditation by the California Department of Public Health allows students who graduate from Miramar’s MLTT program to sit for the examination required to become a licensed medical laboratory technician in the State of California. Students currently enrolled in the program will graduate in May 2011.
The MLTT program, which prepares students for employment in clinical laboratories, industry specializing in Lateral Flow Test Assembly Kitting and medical device manufacturing, and biotechnology as a Medical Laboratory Technician, Laboratory Assistant and or Research Technician/Associate, integrates basic concepts, technical procedures, and laboratory exercises prior to the required practical experience (practicum classes). Practicum classes are held at an affiliate site where students receive actual workplace experience in the job duties of the Medical Laboratory Technician. The entire program is designed for students to master the competencies, skills, and knowledge required in this profession in the context of a two-year associates degree.
According to Dr. Sandra Slivka, director of the San Diego Biotechnology Center at Miramar College, the “curriculum prepares individuals to perform clinical laboratory procedures in chemistry, urinalysis, hematology, microbiology, and immunology and to work in hospitals, medical offices, industry laboratories and research facilities. These facilities include life sciences companies developing diagnostics. There this program meets the critical and immediate shortage of medical laboratory technicians experienced in traditional healthcare and local life science companies developing, manufacturing and marketing diagnostics.”
To address the critical shortage of medical laboratory technicians (MLT) nationwide – and especially in California, the college received over $1,000,000 in federal grants (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) to establish and maintain the medical laboratory technician program through 2013.
