Clinical Policies
Introduction
Clinical course work allows students to apply the knowledge and skills obtained in the didactic component of the curriculum to real life experience in a clinical laboratory. The clinical courses are to provide students with clinical experience in and around the Metropolitan area hospitals and clinic laboratories. Students may also be provided with real or computer simulated learning activities.
Training students is very time consuming due to the nature of the training required at the bench. Training students slows down the work process in the department during the days that a student is on-site. Students should consider clinical training experiences to be a privilege not a right.
Students may be required to travel outside the Metropolitan area for some clinical rotations. Rotations on evenings, nights or weekends may be required. Non-traditional shifts may be created to accommodate the clinical sites. A list of clinical sites used for MLT rotations are list below:
- Minden Medical Center
- Barksdale AFB
- Christus Schumpert Highland
- DeSoto Regional Hospital
- Overton Brooks VA Hospital
- Willis Knighton Health System
- North Caddo Hospital
- Oschner/LSU Medical Center
- Christus Coushatta Hospital
- Claiborne Memorial Hospital
Students will be held to the highest level of work ethics. Excellent attendance, reviewing of lecture notes, laboratory procedures, textbooks and attentiveness to instruction provided are high among the expectations. The ultimate goal of each rotation is that the student is able to do the basic work at the bench with minimum supervision in most areas, regardless of the time or location of the rotation.
Personal relationships with clinical personnel are strictly forbidden.
Alternate Status for Clinical Rotations
The Medical Laboratory Technician Program does not accept more students than it can place in clinical so there is no need for an alternate status.
Service Work Policy
Medical Laboratory Technology students are not expected to perform service work and are not allowed to take the place of qualified staff during any clinical rotation. After demonstrating proficiency, students, with qualified supervision, may be permitted to perform procedures. A clinical institution which employs a currently-enrolled MLT student as a laboratory assistant, registry-eligible MLT, or phlebotomist, will schedule the student for work during non-instructional hours. These paid hours may not count as clinical time as the student is performing the duties of an employee not a student in training. A student may be sponsored by a clinical laboratory facility and receive payment for training hours as long as the student performs the training activities with qualified supervision and the student is not replacing qualified staff.