Program Essential Functions

The Clinical Laboratory Science Student must be able to:

1. Observe laboratory demonstration in which biologicals (i.e., body fluids, culture materials, tissue sections, and cellular specimens) are tested for their biochemical, hematological, immunological, microbiological, and histochemical components.
2. Characterize the color, odor, clarity and viscosity of biologicals, reagents, or chemical reaction products.
3. Employ a clinical grade binocular microscope to discriminate among fine structural and color (hue, shading, and intensity) differences of microscopic specimens.
   
4. Read and comprehend text, numbers, and graphs displayed in print and on a video monitor.

The Clinical Laboratory Science Student must be able to:

1. Move freely and safely about a laboratory
2. Reach laboratory bench tops and shelves, patients lying in hospital beds or patients seated in specimen collection furniture.
3. Travel to numerous clinical laboratory sites for practical experience.
4. Perform moderately taxing continuous physical work, often requiring prolonged sitting, over several hours.
5. Maneuver phlebotomy and culture acquisition equipment to safely collect valid laboratory specimens from patients.
6. Control laboratory equipment (i.e., pipettes, inoculating loops, test tubes), and adjust instruments to perform laboratory procedures.
7. Use an electronic keyboard (i.e., 101-key IBM computer keyboard) to operate laboratory instruments and to calculate, record, evaluate, and transmit laboratory information.

The Clinical Laboratory Science Student must be able to:

1. Read and comprehend technical and professional materials (i.e., textbooks, magazine and journal articles, handbooks, and instructional manuals).
2. Follow verbal and written instructions in order to correctly and independently perform laboratory test procedures.
3. Clearly instruct patients prior to specimen collection.
4. Effectively, confidentially, and sensitively converse with patients regarding laboratory tests.
5. Communicate with faculty members, fellow students, staff, and other health care professionals verbally and in a recorded format (writing, typing, graphic, or telecommunication).
6. Independently prepare papers, prepare laboratory reports, and take paper, computer, and laboratory practical examinations.

The Clinical Laboratory Science Student must be able to:

1. Possess these intellectual skills:  comprehension, measurement, mathematical calculation, reasoning, integration, analysis, comparison, self-expression, and criticism.
2. Be able to exercise sufficient judgment to recognize and correct performance deviations.

The Clinical Laboratory Science Student must be able to:

1. Be able to manage the use of time and be able to systematize actions in order to complete professional and technical tasks within realistic constraints.
2. Possess the emotional health necessary to effectively employ intellect and exercise appropriate judgment.
3. Be able to provide professional and technical services while experiencing the stresses of task-related uncertainty (i.e., ambiguous test ordering, ambivalent test interpretation), emergent demands (i.e., “stat” test orders), and a distracting environment (i.e., high noise levels, crowding, complex visual stimuli). 
   
4. Be flexible and creative and adapt to professional and technical change.
5. Recognize potentially hazardous materials, equipment, and situations, and proceed safely in order to minimize risk of injury to patients, self, and nearby individuals. 
   
6. Adapt to working with unpleasant biologicals.
7. Support and promote the activities of fellow students and of health care professionals. Promotion of peers helps furnish a team approach to learning, task completion, problem solving and patient care.
8. Be honest, compassionate, ethical, and responsible. The student must be forthright about errors or uncertainty. The student must be able to critically evaluate her or his own performance, accept constructive criticism, and look for ways to improve (i.e., participate in enriched educational activities). The student must be able to evaluate the performance of fellow students and tactfully offer constructive comments.