Changing job profile: Clinics are now training medical technologists.
Frankfurt, This morning, teacher Nadine Rosenblatt is discussing with her students on the second floor of the Gotenstraße 6-8 building a test that she had written with them in the field of hematology. It was about human blood and the possibilities of dividing it into its components, but also about laboratory procedures in order to provide evidence of previously determined values in the blood. Question by question, the teacher goes through the answers with the students, all of whom are training to become medical technologists for laboratory analysis.
The scene takes place in the medical technology school for radiology and laboratory analysis, which runs the Varisano Clinic Höchst. With the entry into force of the Act on Professions in Medical Technology (MTBG) on January 1st of this year, the training of the relevant job profiles has been reformed. This has strengthened the professions, says school principal Samya Lahyani. This is also expressed linguistically. “The previously used term assistant was deleted and replaced by medical technologist with the respective focus,” reports Lahyani – from her point of view, it was the right step because medical-technical progress has developed so much over the past 30 years. that it was time to reflect this linguistically with the new job titles.
One of the largest in the Rhine-Main area
Samya Lahyani has been running the school since last year. Women and men can train there to become medical technologists for radiology (MTR) or for laboratory analysis (MTL). “It is one of the largest schools for this in the Rhine-Main area – and the only one in Frankfurt,” says Lahyani, not without pride. The school cooperates with other clinics that send their trainees in both specialist areas to Höchst: In addition to the Varisano Clinic Höchst, these include the Frankfurt University Clinic, the Nordwest Hospital and the Sana Clinic Offenbach.
The headmistress is herself a qualified MTR and studied education. In previous years she had taught at the school as a teacher specializing in nuclear medicine and dosimetry. “We currently have 105 students here who are being trained as MTL or MTR,” she says. The majority of them are still being trained according to the old guidelines because they started their training before the new law came into force. However, the new regulation applies to students in the new training year, which started at the beginning of October this year. 41 trainees are currently affected – 20 of whom come from the University Hospital, 16 from the Höchst Clinic, 3 from the Nordwest Hospital and 2 from the Sana Clinic Offenbach. 21 trainees are being trained as MTL and 20 as MTR.
But what exactly has changed as a result of the new law? “This is particularly the part of the practical instructions,” says Lahyani, referring to the MTBG. Among other things, it states that the provider of the practical training – in this specific case, the clinics – must ensure that the trainees must be guided by a “practice-instructing person” during the practical training. These are people who have completed appropriate vocational training. “This has to be documented in writing,” explains Lahyani. The practical instructions were not previously regulated by law – and so could not be included in the evaluation. She takes out a three-page evaluation form for the practical MTL training from a folder to make this clear. This shows that in addition to technical and methodological competence, social and personal skills are also taken into account as criteria in the assessment. “Social and personal skills” are understood to mean, for example, the ability to self-reflect.
Graduates are in high demand
The employment prospects are good: both job profiles are in demand, the MTR a little more than the MTL, the headmistress knows. In general, there is a higher fluctuation in radiology than in the laboratory. She suspects that this could be due, among other things, to the fact that working in radiology at a clinic, if you work in the emergency room, involves shift work and of course more stress than in the laboratory. “As an MTR, you are much closer to the patient, for example you are also in the shock room,” she explains.
Being committed to patients, but not being exposed to the great stress of being in an emergency room, for example, was the reason for Samia Arreche from the Nordwest Hospital to get involved in MTL training. The trainee believes that her desire was to help people – and she could do that very well in the laboratory. She likes the fact that the new law places even greater emphasis on the practical part of training.
Alexandra Flieth
#longer #assistants
