Job Title Recommendations for Allied Health Professionals Related to Clinical Pathology, Laboratory Medicine, and Medical Biology

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find terms that can give identity to the major and occupation of clinical laboratory technologist (also known as medical technologist). The term clinical pathology includes all branches of pathology, namely anatomical pathology, chemical pathology, hematology, microbiology, and all respective subspecialties. Unfortunately, several countries exclude anatomical pathology from the term clinical pathology, a problem that gets compounded when the title is translated into languages other than English. Clinical pathology (US, UK) is a medical specialty. Similar terms are laboratory medicine (Germany, Poland), medical/clinical biology (France, Netherlands) or clinical analysis (Spain). Depending on the person questioned, medical technology is defined slightly differently by individuals, companies, and institutions. The definition also depends on the language in which the question is asked. Medical technology can be translated to define clinical laboratory technology, allied health sciences, medical equipment, biomedical engineering, and health technology. The terms ‘clinical pathology technology and pathological technology’ are not used in allied health sciences. The names of ‘medical technologyㆍmedical technologist’ can be replaced by ‘biomedical laboratory scienceㆍ biomedical laboratory technologist’ or ‘clinical laboratory analysisㆍclinical laboratory analyst’. In this study, it is proposed to change the name of academic and occupation to ‘medical biologyㆍmedical biology technologist’ that combines the term biomedical.

Keywords

• biomedical laboratory technologist
• clinical laboratory analyst
• clinical laboratory technologist
• medical biology technologist
• medical technologist