As promised, the following is my undoubtedly
inaccurate, definitely unscientific survey of 
histology job vacancies from the July 31, 2000 
ADVANCE for Laboratory Professionals.

There were 404 jobs listed:

- 165 MT
-   5 MT lead techs
-  52 MLT
-  40 MT supervisors
-  24 MT Managers/Directors
-   6 LIS/QA/Sales
-  41 CT
-   0 CT supervisors
-   6 cytogenetics
-   2 PA
-  53 Histotechs (HT/HTL)
-  10 Histotech supervisors

(If a job said MT or MLT, one time I would
mark it as MT, then next ad that said this
I would mark it as MLT.)

(If the job said they need Medical Technologists
(plural), I would mark it as 2. If they said
MTs (plural) and listed the 6 labs they needed
them in, I would mark 6. Like I said, "inaccurate".)

Anyway, that makes 63 (53+10) out of the 404 jobs
for histotechs = 15.6%.

Histotechs in our area make up 5-6% of the
lab technician/technologists. So this is
3 times the number of ads expected.

-----

What were they looking for in a histotech (bench)?

- 27 just stated they needed a HT/HTL, or stated it was
	for routine and special histology procedures

The following indicated, in addition to the
routine and special histology procedures, they also
needed the following:

- 13 IHC
-  1 IHC + ISH
-  2 IHC + ISH + DNA analysis
-  1 IHC + cytology prep
-  1 IHC + Kidney biopsy procedures + EM
-  1 IHC + EM
-  1 IHC + Neuropathology
-  1 IHC + ER/PR + HPV-DNA
-  1 IHC + dermatopathology
-  1 Dermatopathology
-  1 Grossing

----

If the ads specified anything about education, training,
experience, etc. they said:

- 1-5 years experience (2 most common)
- ASCP registered HT or HTL
- 2 said must be a graduate of a NAACLS-accredited histology program
- 1 required AA
- 1 required AA or BS
- 1 referred BS HTL
- 1 required BS

---

For the 10 supervisor/manager positions (with overlap):

- All required experience (2-6 years) in histology, with
	2-5 years of supervisory experience
- 4 required cytology experience (will be supervising cytology)
	- don't think they mean being a cytotech
- 2 required IHC experience
- 1 required EM experience and EMSA certification a plus.
- 1 required statistics
- 3 stated they required BS, with one preferring a MS


So, that's it folks. That's what I do in the evenings
when there's a dumb rerun on the TV, and I'm not
motivated enough to clean house or work on the 
computer. I look at information like this to check
the pulse of the histotech community, so I know
how many students to accept and what new things I
have to teach them. (From this information, I'm
revamping how we teach Mol. Path., and am
seriously trying to figure out how to add a
little bit of grossing lectures/experience.)

No, I don't change my program on the basis of
one survey. I've been doing this informally a
couple of times a year, for several years.
I've started to do it every 6 weeks since 
November, as I wanted to make some changes in
the way we teach Mol. Path., to see the trends.

And there is a trend (unscientific, remember):

- IHC is commonly needed
- Mol. Path. (IHC, DNA analysis, Flow) is 
less common, but always there)(PCR is very rare)
- Grossing usually has 1-3 ads listing it
- Ads are listing AA or BS more often
than they used to (say 2-3 years ago)
- I'm now seeing ads wanting NAACLS graduates.
- There are a lot more ads for supervisors,
demanding supervisory experience, than there
were several years ago. ?Possibly labs aren't
promoting from within as they used to?
?Possibly don't have the time to train the
bench tech to be a supervisor any more?
- More supervisor positions are asking for
BS or Masters, and HTL over HT, than used
to several years ago. (Though the majority
still say ASCP HT or HTL, and don't list
education requirement.)

Hope this helps someone else.

Peggy A. Wenk, HTL(ASCP)
Schools of HT and HTL
William Beaumont Hospital
Royal Oak, MI 48073