Doctor or nurse.
These two career goals prevail as the most historically popular professional ambitions for students in college science Bachelor programs. Despite the countless outstanding careers available in clinical laboratory subspecialties, few young high school or college science students aspire to be a cytologist, a medical laboratory scientist, a histotechnologist, a pathologists’ assistant, or a medical laboratory assistant.
There is one simple reason these career options remain untargeted: students do not know they exist.
The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts more than 24,000 medical laboratory professionals will be needed each year through 2032. Despite that opportunity, only about 8,000 students will graduate annually from accredited laboratory training programs. While this shortfall sounds critical, it also represents a huge potential for young people to enter a laboratory career. One of the most impactful ways to expose students to these opportunities is to invite them into the laboratory workspace for an observership, a job shadow, or an internship.
It is well appreciated that career advocacy requires time and effort from busy professionals who may already be juggling staffing shortages along with the day-to-day challenges inherent in our profession. In recognition of this, the ASCP has recently launched a new Internship Academy to relieve the administrative burden of career ambassadorship.
The ASCP Internship Academy is a comprehensive online course that equips laboratory professionals, educators, and administrators with the tools and guidance needed to design, launch, and maintain a successful internship program. Through interactive lessons, instructional documents and customizable templates, participants will learn how to secure institutional support, manage interns, and most importantly, promote and sustain programs that enhance both recruitment and workforce diversity. Upon completion, participants will be prepared to launch a sustainable internship model that can continuously cultivate new laboratory professionals.
The new ASCP offering takes the heavy lifting out of establishing an internship program. It was inspired in part by the career internship program I established in 2010 at the Boston Children’s Hospital Department of Pathology, offering select high school and college students hands-on experience in all areas of pathology, including the anatomic, molecular, research, and administrative operations. Since its inception, the program has redirected countless young science students toward a variety of permanent careers in the laboratory.
The ASCP has been instrumental in developing innovative solutions to bolster the medical laboratory workforce and help mitigate the critical shortage of laboratory professionals, and the new Internship Academy enhances the Society’s already significant offerings.
Learn more about the ASCP Leadership Academy at https://www.ascp.org/news/workforce-initiatives/ascp-internship-academy.
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