Students at CCC Celebrate National Medical

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Plattsburgh, NY___The clinical laboratory professional is a key member of today’s health care team.  Laboratory professionals have the skills to unlock important medical information that is pivotal to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease.

Every day, nurses, physicians, and other medical workers depend on laboratory professionals to perform tests on body fluids, interpret the results, and help provide a complete picture of a patient’s health.  Using modern biomedical equipment and complicated analysis, laboratorians can detect the presence of cancer, identify infectious viruses and bacteria, and measure glucose, cholesterol, or drug levels in blood.  Without this precise and valuable information, medicine would simply become guesswork.

Laboratory professionals often work in hospitals, physician offices, or private clinical laboratories, performing laboratory tests and monitoring the quality of their results.  Others are employed by university or industrial research laboratories to seek solutions for medicine’s many unanswered questions.  And these professionals are increasingly found outside the traditional laboratory, participating in community health activities, conducting environmental testing, or serving in the Peace Corps.

National Medical Laboratory Week (NMLW) began in 1975 under the auspices of the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science (then the American Society for Medical Technology).  Now, numerous organizations participate in the event as co-sponsors and campaign supporters.  Co-sponsors for 2005 are:

Association of Public Health Laboratories

American Association of Blood Banks

American Association for Clinical Chemistry

American Medical Technologists

American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science

American Society for Clinical Pathology

American Society of Cytopathology

American Society for Microbiology

Clinical Laboratory Management Association

College of American Pathologists

The National Society for Histotechnology

In addition to NMLW activities headed by national groups, numerous hospitals and clinical laboratories around the country will hold celebrations to benefit the general public as well as laboratory professionals.  These events are designed to recognize laboratories and laboratory professionals, enhance their image, and educate the public, government and private sectors about their role in health care.

Whatever the setting – behind the scenes or out in your community – laboratory professionals are by your side, working as key members of your health care team.  From April 24-30, 2005 please join these Clinton Community College Medical Laboratory Technician students, who are celebrating National Medical Laboratory Week.

-###-