An entry-level MS degree in clinical laboratory science: Is it time?

Clinical Laboratory Science, Summer 2002 by Beck, Susan J, Doig, Kathy

The finding that half of the hospital-based educators thought entry-level MS programs were not possible at their institutions needs further analysis. This may have been a difficult question for hospital-based educators to answer because, in most cases, the academic affiliate rather than the hospital grants the academic degree. Because the survey did not probe deeper, it is unclear whether the impossibility of offering an MS degree is true at any given institution or merely unexplored. Hospital-based programs could participate in MS degree education in the same way they are involved in BS programs. They could continue to offer the professional phase of the program with lectures and laboratory clinical experiences. The additional graduate course work in management, education, or advanced science could be provided by the degree granting institution and/or by the hospital. The types of projects CLS students often complete in their clinical rotations would be acceptable for MS projects, if not theses. It may be that hospital-- based educators expect that any greater involvement of their institution in teaching is not possible, and hence their responses to the question. However, the added courses for the MS degree would not have to be provided by the hospital. So in fact, more hospital-- based programs may be able to participate in an entry-level MS degree than the data suggest.

Educators, managers, and practitioners disagreed with statements suggesting that an entry-level MS degree would be needed in the next 5 to 10 years; however, some differences were detected when educators in hospital-based and university-based programs were compared. Hospital-based educators did not see the need for the entry-level MS degree in the future while university-based educators were undecided. It is possible that university-based educators are more receptive to an entry-level MS degree in the future because they are in closer contact with other allied health faculty and are aware of the trend toward increasing educational standards in other professions. It is also possible that hospital-based educators' views of the future are more realistic or more strongly influenced by practical concerns about program survival and enrollment.

The conclusion from the data presented here, that there is no place for an entry-level MS degree in CLS at this time, may be simplistic. It is true that the survey respondents do not imagine the need; however, that does not mean that if such individuals existed, they would not find a place in the clinical laboratory. The history of the development of the Pharmacy Doctorate (Pharm D) is a case in point. Roughly fifty years ago, the need for any role other than that of the familiar dispensing pharmacist was not established. However, faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, believing that pharmacists could provide a broader set of services to healthcare providers and patients, undertook an experiment.14 They found the necessary approval to place small dispensaries on hospital floors and staffed them with qualified pharmacists. Not surprisingly, over time, the pharmacists became more accepted and even relied upon by the providers, so that when the experiment was over and the floor dispensaries were closed, providers demanded that pharmacists be available on the floors as consultants. Thus was born the Pharm D. Over time the number of Pharm D programs has grown and as of 2004, it will be the entry-level degree.