I
read a post on the Facebook
Medical Laboratory Professionals group this morning.
“Do
you think your job as you know it will exist until you retire?”
Well…
Quite frankly as long as it sees me out, I’m all right.
Admittedly
the question was asked from an American point of view, but from the UK
perspective I think it will see me out… but not for those following me.
Blood
tests will still be done in the future… but what does a manager do when they
advertise a job and get no applicants whatsoever? (when I was a lab manager
this was a regular occurrence)
Why
no applicants? Look at the trainee positions for which there were no applicants
– back in the day you became a trainee from school aged seventeen and your training (up to MSc level) was paid for - it was part of your wages. Nowadays
trainees take up post in their mid to late twenties (having paid for their own university education) at wages far below what
their mates in other lines of work get at that age.
And
look at the hours - You will be expected to be available for shifts at any time
day and night. I haven’t a complete weekend off in the last month at all, I
missed my daughter’s first eight birthday parties and can’t remember when I
last had a complete Christmas break.
And
do you want to make a career of it? Opportunities for advancement are few and
far between, and the pay differential between the pay bands isn’t worth the
extra hassle.
How
did labs cope with no application for trainee positions? A massive growth in
the unqualified lab assistant grades staffed by people with little formal
training doing more and more stuff,
And
look at cytology screening right now. To deal with staff shortages pretty much
all of the south-east’s cytology work has recently been centralised at one huge
lab site leaving people with either hundreds of miles to travel to work, or
with no work. However it was rather silly to centralise where house prices are
sky-high, wasn’t it?
Centralisation
and de-skilling await which can only be a bad thing. Take yesterday for
example. I had a phone call… a patient was on a heparin-type anticoagulant. The
APTT was over the top of the range. Should the doctor increase or decrease the
dose? In years to come the labs will be filled with those who don’t know the
answer to that question.
Also
bear in mind that if you make a mistake (and who doesn’t!) your mistake
may well have the potential to kill someone. And when (not if) you make a
mistake will anyone remember all the effort that you put in over the years? You
may well find yourself dumped and made unemployable by managers desperate to
cover their own backs.
I
will also make the observation that my son drives a fork-lift truck about and
he earns far more than I do. A train driver (with twelve weeks training)
earns more than my supervisors get.
There
are those who idealistically say they are doing it for the interest or the
altruism of the job, but that soon wears off. Like all jobs it can easily get
boring and repetitive. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t dislike what I do, and
writing this blog goes a long way to keeping me interested, but after forty
years doing blood tests I want to sell ice creams or dig graves or do *anything*
which is different.
Much
as I have learned a *lot* in my forty years of testing blood if I had my
time again I would do something else.
