Yupp he strikes again.
Joanne, I strongly agree with your perspective. Many Techs do not have formal expensive educations and have sat on the bench for many years and eventually became grandfathered in. Those techs are the life blood of pathology. It has only been in recent years that licensure has become a larger part of health care requiring personal to obtain certification to "hopefully" increase patient care. But, this argument is becoming a thing of the past, because CLIA, CAP, JOCA have set standards that personal must meet regardless of the extensive OJT. I am qualified to gross based on these accrediators standards. It is others opinions that think these "standards" are weak. If the argument is greed, than people should understand that employee payroll is the highest cost within a laboratory so to help cut cost to our bankrupt health care system, why not pay a Histologist who is clearly qualified to do a job they have been doing since the beginning of pathology. The pathologists assistant profession began in 1969 with a pilot training program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC) in Durham, North Carolina. In 1856 William Perkin discovered the dye mauve that was used in the early 1860s by F W B Benke of Marlbery. Joseph Janavier Woodward, a surgeon in the US Army, used fuchsine and aniline blue to stain human intestines. Paul Ehrlich realized that the chemical dyes obtained from coal tar did not simply color cells but combined with the chemical elements within them to form new substances. The Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher, in 1869 used aniline dyes to examine the cell nucleus. In 1875 Carl Weigart, Ehrlich's cousin, demonstrated the fuchsine derivative methyl violet stained bacteria as opposed to tissue. The first histologist, Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), an Italian anatomist, is in fact considered the true Father of Histology. 1819, A. Mayer created the term Histology. In the sequence of the previous word tissue, made use of two classical Greek root words (histos = tissue and logos = study So, my point is I do believe Histo's have been involved since the very beginning. We as a profession have a combined experience well beyond that of any formal education. Last thought, and I quote, "I know I would make mistakes, and mistakes may be considered part of the learning process, but do we really want to accept that in health care? Mistakes should happen in school, not with a real, live patients tissue." This statement clearly conflicts with all aspect of becoming a medical professional. Our state/government funded hospitals employ thousands of residents each year who treat thousands of indigent and paying patients. This is their school. Histologist do interships within hospitals to get training. This is their school to. Nurses, MLT's, MA's, everyone in health care learns the actual (beyond books)trade from watching and working with skilled persons who have many years of experience. They would not place a student with a person who has a degree but no experience. My education qualifies me to be trained by anyone in my field of pathology, and I should be used where my skills will best serve my department and increase patient care. Each one of us serves a purpose and is valuable, no matter what job we perform with what amount of education. The law is weeding out those who are no longer qualified to work in out field, they set the standard. Let's let them make the decisions on who is qualified to do what and stick together to ensure its fair to each one of us. Can't we all just get along...hehehehehe Nicole Tatum HT, ASCP _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet