There was quite a squabble kicking off on one of
the work-related Facebook pages I follow, In order to be a professional biomedical
scientist you need to have a degree in biomedical science before you start. But
not just any old degree; you need one which is specifically accredited by the IBMS.
Time and time again people start doing any old
degree, complete the course and then find that their qualification isn’t
actually what they thought it was, they find it isn’t actually worth having,
and they have to spend a couple more years doing top-up modules to be able to
use what they’ve studied.
I made the (perhaps
somewhat flippant) observation that choosing the right degree in the first
place might be considered to be (in
itself) some sort of a test, and that hadn’t gone down well with several
people who’d made that mistake. Some people who were actively looking for work
were then rather insulting and rude to someone
who (for all they knew) might
well be sitting on their interview panel
Over the years I’ve met so many people who’ve got
to the stage of having a biomedical science degree (that has taken four years to obtain) that isn’t fit for purpose, Or
they’ve got the “right” degree only
to find they have no idea what a biomedical scientist actually does. Or they
actually want to do forensic pathology or research and didn’t realise that
neither is what happens in the hospital setting.
Do people *really*
just go to a university and study whatever takes their fancy (whilst running up thousands of pounds of
debt) with no long term plan?
And the picture above is the social media profile
picture that was being used by one of the young ladies who was trying to
impress her future colleagues… I censored her face to try to maintain some
degree of anonymity… not that anyone would have been looking at it…
Sometimes I despair for the future of
professional blood testing. Back in the day you entered the job aged seventeen
having done reasonably well at your “O”
levels. The laboratory in which you worked then sent you to college one day a
week for the next four years and then you were qualified. If you wanted it,
there was the option to do a further two years day-release to get an MSc
equivalent degree (which I did).
Nowadays you are expected to go get all the qualifications in your own time and
at your own expense. You apply for a job *after*
you qualify (*not* four years before any
more), and by the time people have farted around having gap years and the
like, they don’t start looking for work until about ten years later in life
than I did.
And a twenty-seven year-old has far more
expectations than a seventeen year old.
Perhaps we might go back to the old way of
working. And perhaps we might keep our clothes on…?
