Where the heroes are: a tribute to military MLTs

Medical Laboratory Observer, Dec, 2003 by Carren Bersch, Dottie Dunham

When medical personnel marched off to the Civil War, most had only a couple of years' worth of education. (Harvard Medical School did not even own a single stethoscope or microscope!) A working knowledge of what caused diseases was foreign to them. For every soldier who died in battle, two died of disease. These grossly archaic conditions are lightyears away from today's cutting-edge medical scientific and technological advances. Military men and women rely on the fact that their medical teams are well-educated and well-prepared to care for them wherever they might serve. Among these teams are highly educated medical laboratory technicians (MLTs) whose training might well have been received at the Army's top-notch training facility, the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School (AMEDD C & S) at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Both the Navy and the Air Force have smaller-scale versions of this MLT program, according to Maj. Michael D. Miller, MS and its chief of education and training.

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In June 2001, Miller arrived at the AMEDD C & S. "I became interested in the laboratory field when I was in the 10th grade," Miller says. "My medical Explorer troop in South Carolina met biweekly at Lexington County Hospital. We did our rotation through the laboratory and morgue, then had a forensic pathologist come to deliver a talk. I was hooked. The Army was not my first career choice. I knew that I wanted to go to college, and the Army offered me a scholarship. My intent was to spend the mandatory four years for the scholarship, and then leave. Here I am, 14 years later."

You're in the Army now

Miller heads up a team that coordinates the students' initial MLT program entry and serves as their administrative staff to the end of their training and beyond. A student applicant must achieve an aptitude score of over 107 on the military exam and a C or higher in algebra and chemistry. If these two courses have not been taken or the required GPA has not been met, applicants are not allowed into the program and, says Miller, on average annually, 35 to 40 are not.

Enlisted and officer MLTs and MTs complete a training program to become instructors, staying for an average of 3.5 years. "We do have some civilians that teach within the program," says Miller, "with post-graduate degrees in microbiology, chemistry and parasitology." As education coordinator, Miller sits in on instruction, notes deficiencies, furnishes critiques to instructors, assigns mentors when instructor issues exist, trains department members on mentorship and teamwork, and updates issues, such as HIPAA and CLIA, and the effects of those on the program.

No time for sergeants?

Five or six classes of 116 students simultaneously attend the MLT program for 52 weeks. Balanced between hands-on practical exercises and lecture, Phase I (focused on didactic), consists of 26 weeks: nine in chemistry and urinalysis; eight in hematology, coagulation and blood bank; and nine in microbiology, immunology and parasitology.

Students are then sent for Phase II clinical rotations for 26 weeks at one of 21 sites within the United States "at someplace as 'glamorous' as Hawaii's Tripler Army Medical Center or as 'grassroots' as Fort Polk, LA's Bayne Jones Army Community Hospital," Miller says. Every three years, all sites are visited under an NAACLS accreditation agreement.

Once students complete Phase II, they are 12 credit hours shy of an associate's degree from George Washington University (GWU). They can either take the 12 combined hours of English, higher math, and specified electives at a community college and transfer them to GWU, or sit for the CLEP exams, to get that degree.

"If I had to cite the major difference between ours and a civilian program," says Miller, "it is the level of discipline required to succeed in the military. Our students awake at 0430 daily, conduct physical training until 0615, shower, dress and eat until 0745, begin classes at 0815, get dismissed at 1700, eat dinner and perform barracks duties until 1930, and study until lights out at 2200.

"Did I mention that while at Phase I they still belong to a drill sergeant? That makes it even tougher!"

The GI bill and other benefits

Miller cites the military's MLT program advantages: "The attrition rates in civilian MLT schools can be as high as 50% because of financial issues, commitment problems, lack of maturity and so on. In the military, this is your job for one full year. You are paid to learn. You don't have to balance academics and two part-time jobs.

"The active-duty military is not experiencing a shortage of people entering the MLT field," Miller notes. "Our class sizes have grown over the past two years. People get into this field so they can have a skill and a job when they exit the service."

The current Army contract provides over $70,000 in tuition payback and $50,000 additional tuition assistance while in the service through the GI bill. The MLTs also get a bonus of over $5,000 once they complete Phase II training.