[Histonet] HTL Career Path

[Teri Johnson]

Hi Anna,

I really cannot beat what Tim has said in response to your concerns. He is spot on and I think his experience in some way mirrors my own (with the exception of industry experience).

My question to you, though, relates to your expectation. How quickly are you expecting to advance in your career, and is that expectation reasonable? Those of us who have been in this field for a long time knows it usually takes quite a while to learn and to prove yourself to an employer. It is possible for highly motivated and high producing staff members to rise to the top fairly quickly if there is opportunity. It may be more common, though, to find yourself highly motivated and highly productive and still in your current role for longer than you want due to lack of vacancies.

Honestly, I find the pay scale for HT/HTL to be quite good in most metropolitan areas and there are definitely opportunities out there to maximize your compensation provided you have a resume to support it. You've got to earn it, you've got to put in the work as Tim outlined. Learn everything you can, network, make yourself valuable, but never lose sight of the importance of teamwork and demonstrate that ability.

I don't think I would go back to school and expect it to reflect in a positive way financially if you decide to stay in Histotechnology. You will end up trying to pay off a student loan with not much added compensation for your degree since it really isn't required beyond a Bachelor's degree.

I do hope you remain in the field. Your current knowledge and enthusiasm for the discipline is a wonderful thing.

Best wishes,

Teri Johnson
Manager, Clinical Trial Testing
Genoptix, Inc., a Novartis company
BioPharma
1811 Aston Avenue
Carlsbad, CA  92008
USA

Phone +1 760 516 5954
tejohnson at genoptix.com
www.genoptix.com


-----Original Message-----

Anna, This is a great topic and you pretty much nailed it as far as getting into it "accidently." The fact is, most of us did. However, you can approach it a couple ways.

The big question is, how do you want to advance. Do you want to stay in the lab and be the overall lab expert, or do you want to eventually move to some kind of management role?  Either way, you need to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way.

First, if you want to stay in one institution, for whatever reason, and it is large enough, or growing, then the path to take is to first be excellent at what you currently do, and second, take advantage of every single opportunity to learn something new, including taking on special projects, committees (ie, QA, safety, emergency planning, whatever comes along) in order to get to know as many people in the organization as possible and what opportunities exist in other areas. For instance, one person here was a med tech in the clin lab from many years, took on QA duties, worked on CAP and JC inspection readiness, participated in doing CAP inspections, and now is the QA person for the entire laboratory and POC labs - which is a huge job in our institution (dozens of lab sites). So, essentially finding ways to move up. You could also do that in a management route with the idea that you learn management that can be applied to any department, not just histology or pathology. That would allow you to work anywhere.

The other path is to move to other institutions as you outgrow your job at your current workplace. If your institution is small you may or may not be able to move up. A lot of times It depends more on others moving up or out rather than your own ambitions. In that case keep your options open for other opportunities that come up. Generally, if you move to a new job you should also be moving up at least to the next higher level, otherwise your pay will go down rather than up (no place will bring you in at the high pay rate you reached after 10 years in your current job - they want to bring you on in the middle of their pay range). That means you need to take advantage of learning the next level of more advanced skills in any job you have. Never stick to your job description - that is just a suggestion and should be considered the floor level of what you should do. No manger is ever going to ask you to stop volunteering to do more!

Additionally, look for opportunities to apply current knowledge in new areas, whether research, government labs, including working for a vendor. You would be amazed at how much you can learn in that venue that will help you in all other aspects of your work (product development, marketing, sales, customer relations, technical support, etc).

In short, learn everything you can about your field, attend meetings, even if on your own dime, get involved in management of the lab, take on special projects, move around if necessary to gain new experience and perspective.

And have some fun along the way!


Tim Morken
Pathology Site Manager, Parnassus
Supervisor, Electron Microscopy/Neuromuscular Special Studies Department of Pathology UC San Francisco Medical Center




-----Original Message-----
From: Anna Huntley Coffey via Histonet [mailto:histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 6:12 AM
To: histonet at lists.utsouthwestern.edu
Subject: [Histonet] HTL Career Path

Hello Histonet,

I have been following this listserve for a couple years now and have found it to be a very interesting and helpful forum for sharing ideas and information among individuals with varied career histories in the histopath field. I sort of fell into histology work while working on my MS thesis in marine biology, making my own H&E slides for diagnosis of a parasite found in blue crabs. Since I graduated in 2011, I've worked mostly in research histology labs and just got my HTL certification last spring, working on my qIHC this fall.

I like the histology field and have had the pleasure of working with some really great people. However, I've felt discouraged at times with what seems like a lack of opportunity for professional growth and advancement and sometimes it feels like the only way to get new experiences and higher pay is to go back to school for another degree or completely change jobs and move to a new institution. I realize that I got into histology almost accidentally and that some of my experiences may be unique to the research field, but I'd be very interested to hear about your experiences regarding research vs. clinical work, how you were able to be intentional about your career path, what advancement opportunities you've found, etc. if you're willing to share them.

Thanks,
Anna

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