[Histonet] BS in Histotechnology

[Morken, Timothy]

Pam, true enough. Indeed, for the annual NSH survey my only comment was that NSH has been ineffective in convincing pathology departments of the value of an HT or HTL certification - to the point that many are now questioning its value at all. Ours is  one of few institutions that requires certification for advancement and our medical directors have been pushing for higher quality staff in order to raise the quality of our lab. We went through a pay revision about 7 years ago because the biotech companies and other large medical institutions were sucking up any candidates that poked their head up. We are now on par but still have to fight for any good candidates. 

But as long as histotechs are on the job trained (probably 99.9% now, as in the past), and invisible to high school and college students, the pay is going nowhere. It is still quite possible to get into the field with no experience . One of our techs got into histology by answering a Craig's list ad placed by a slide mill. He is  very good tech, and has a degree in cellular and molecular biology, but that just goes to show how random our source pool is. His education is good, his histology training is random. And another quality candidate just randomly poked his head in my office a few months ago saying he had been doing some histology work in a research lab and was really excited to find out it could be a full time permanent job. We hired him but he is starting in accessioning  and will work his way into histology.  This is how most people get into histology.



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

Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu [mailto:histonet-bounces <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu] On Behalf Of Pam Marcum
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 10:13 AM
To: Sue
Cc: Histonet; Morken, Timothy; Jennifer MacDonald
Subject: Re: [Histonet] BS in Histotechnology

It is the only truth I deal with here.  We are, like TJH, University medical school and they only care about the degree, four year is best.  They (administration and/or the pathologists) have never attempted to learn what we have or how we do it and I doubt they will ever want to learn about Histology.  
  
When I started many years ago the residents had to come through Histology for two to six weeks depending on the site.  Now we get 10 minutes to explain what they need to do to get good, not even great slides and stains. They simply are not interested and these will be the people future Histologists have to work for and depend on for pay.  We are in trouble and it is getting deeper.  I have the same question I have had for years: Where is NSH and how are they helping us move forward?  I have seen no movement to help get us raised to Laboratory Professionals.  I have only heard as long as we don't have degrees for our training we will not be recoginzied.  I have the degrees and still have to fight for salary and my rasies while if I were an MT it would be a given.  
  
Sorry this is a sore subject and I fight yearly to get bare minimum raises for our people.  We did not get raises at all for two years and that was throughout the labs and hosptial.  Two percent raises are very close to an insult for us.  (We are talking angstrom close; not inches.) 
  
Pam 

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

From: "Sue" <suetp918 <@t> comcast.net> 
To: "Timothy Morken" <Timothy.Morken <@t> ucsf.edu> 
Cc: "Histonet" <histonet <@t> lists.utsouthwestern.edu>, "Jennifer MacDonald" <JMacDonald <@t> mtsac.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 11:59:20 AM 
Subject: Re: [Histonet] BS in Histotechnology 

This is a fight that we continue to have with hospital administration.  In my opinion histologists are just as important and needed as MT.  Even though there is an increase in automation in pathology the hands on of a histologists is most important.  The fact that hospital still consider a lower entry job is the reason there are not more of us.  It is quite frustrating. 
  
Sue 
TJUH 
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