Interviews & Features

The approximately 335,500 medical laboratory professionals in the U.S. are the unsung heroes administering these tests on top of their pre-existing duties in the lab. Up until recently, these professionals have gotten little recognition for the behind-the-scenes work that they do.

March is National Kidney awareness month. The aim of this month is to educate the public about this unknown and often undetected disease. “It is about getting the word out there that kidney disease is a very common deadly disease, and we have ways to prevent it,” shares Dr. Susan Quaggin, president of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN).

Demand for medical testing is expected to grow in coming years due to the introduction of new genetic tests to the market and an aging population, but there is a concerning shortage of laboratory professionals plaguing hospitals, doctor’s offices, and labs that is only expected to get worse. We investigate why there aren’t enough laboratory technicians and technologists to go around and what a career in medical laboratory sciences looks like.

With so many professionals and titles in this field, it can be challenging for clients to determine who to go to for help and what kind of help a given nutrition expert can provide. Common titles in this field include clinical nutritionist, integrative nutritionist, dietician, nutritional therapist, wellness consultant, life coach, eating disorder nutritionist, and forensic nutritionist.

It can be too easy, sometimes, to look past the work of a dental assistant. But they represent the largest segment of the dental workforce. This is a fast-growing, patient-facing role that’s much more complex than it seems.

Phlebotomists are essential members of the healthcare ecosystem. Their skill and expertise are necessary to perform venipunctures and other laboratory test sample collections. Thanks to their hard work, physicians have the test results they need to help to diagnose patients based on blood work.

Governments face enormous political and technology challenges in ensuring the safe return to “normal.” Yet, a growing distrust of government and authorities and the mental health toll from extended lockdowns and restrictions will require pandemic preparedness to focus not only on disease control but also on ensuring the protection of individual freedoms.

A new study from researchers using technology from AI company AKASA found the company’s novel machine learning approach (Read, Attend, and Code, or RAC) outperformed current state-of-the-art models to decode medical notes for patient billing in a matter of seconds.

November is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Awareness Month. COPD is a long-term disease that makes it hard to breathe and is primarily caused by smoking, although it can also be caused by many factors, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. Currently, there are 16.4 million Americans living with COPD, and in 2018, 156,045 people died from this disease.

Radiologic technology has come a long way since the discovery of the x-ray by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen on November 8, 1895. That discovery, hailed as a medical miracle, led to a chain of innovations that have changed the face of modern medicine: from mobile chest x-rays to CT scans to MRIs and 3D mammograms.