Student Laboratories as a Component of a Web-based Curriculum

Clinical Laboratory Science, Spring 2006 by St John, E Camellia, Kanuth, Michelle S

OBJECTIVE: To enable place-bound working clinical laboratory technicians (CLTs) to benefit from hands-on student laboratory sessions taught in University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) facilities by UTMB professors.

DESIGN: Weekend student laboratory sessions similar to "wet workshops" were implemented and integrated into regular coursework. Student laboratory sessions of 12 hours to 16 hours in length were provided.

SETTING: The UTMB student laboratories.

PARTICIPANTS: Web-based education in Clinical Laboratory Science (WEBCLS) students who are working CLTs in rural place-bound situations.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Course grades and certification examination scores on laboratory and comprehensive examinations given to both on-campus students and WEBCLS students.

RESULTS: Of 68 WEBCLS students enrolled in laboratory courses during the calendar years 2003, 2004, and 2005, 66.2% earned grades of A or B in the course compared with 64.2% of students enrolled in the same laboratory courses on-campus. Over a three year period, the WEBCLS students averaged 564.8 on certification exam scores, while on-campus students averaged 470.9.

ABBREVIATIONS: CAP = College of American Pathologists; CLSs = clinical laboratory scientists; CLTs = clinical laboratory technicians; RBCs = red blood cells; UTMB = University of Texas Medical Branch; WEBCLS = web-based education in Clinical Laboratory Science (a program designed for off-campus CLT students to pursue the Bachelor of Science degree in CLS through distance education using web-based materials).

INDEX TERMS: clinical laboratory science programs; distance education; rural and underserved areas; web-based education; student laboratories.

Clin Lab Sci 2006;19(2):117

CLTs daily take on the responsibilities of clinical laboratory scientists (CLSs) because of the limited number of CLS graduates available to be employed in their area of the country.1-3 There is only a 76% overlap in the job responsibilities of CLTs and CLSs, indicating that some job responsibilities may be underperformed in these situations.4 The shortage of qualified personnel creates difficulty for the clinical facility in meeting Medicare reimbursement regulations for supervisory personnel.5-7 Many of these individuals would like to continue their education but are limited by the declining number of CLS programs, the absence of such programs within their geographical area, and their increasing work obligations, current job and family responsibilities, and the financial burden of uprooting their families to move to an area where a CLS program is available. Lack of the ability to move upward in the laboratory is a major dissatisfier in job satisfaction. In a study by Doig and Beck, 85.5% of respondents to a survey felt that they lacked the availability of career advancement.8 While parts of Texas are rural, and parts of the state are medically underserved, most CLS programs in the state are located in urban, well-served areas/The university-based CLS programs in Texas and the populations of those areas are detailed in Table 1. Sensitivity to these needs is critical in providing competent, well-educated, and dedicated CLS graduates to fill positions in all regions of Texas.

With 151 CLS programs having closed in the past ten years, those that continue need to operate in both cost-effective and in non-traditional manners.9-11 Virtual laboratories have been used successfully as portions of courses taught in nursing, pathology, histology/cytology and pharmacy, however, their situations vary considerably from CLS education. These faculty report that student performance in virtual laboratory classes did not vary significantly from that of students educated in traditional student laboratory classes.12-15 It was with these thoughts in mind that we developed WEBCLS to facilitate the educational transition from the associate degree CLT to the baccalaureate CLS for place-bound, working individuals. WEBCLS builds on the concept of CLT to CLS articulation, in which individuals having an associate degree in laboratory science follow a prescribed curriculum in a baccalaureate CLS program. Articulation agreements provide for the CLS program to give university credit for the medical laboratory courses already taken at the associate level. A major component and concern was the delivery of laboratory experiences to these students.

We needed to make certain that at least three criteria were met: 1) provide WEBCLS students with at least the same quality of experiences that we offered to on-campus students, 2) provide experiences which could be completed while employed in any geographical location, as long as the student could travel to Galveston occasionally, and 3) facilitate laboratory sessions of a length that would minimize travel and lodging expenses while providing appropriate laboratory experiences. The types of laboratory experiences considered were three-fold: introduction to and familiarization with laboratory experiences, problem-solving dry laboratory experiences, and "wet" laboratory testing experiences.