Essential Functions for Students in the Medical Laboratory and Radiation Sciences (MLRS) Department

If you major in Medical Laboratory Science, you will be choosing a health care profession where honesty and integrity are critical personal characteristics required both in your academic studies and in the practice of the profession. To ensure that your decision to pursue this career is the correct one for you, we ask that you review the Essential Functions by which you will be assessed as a Medical Laboratory Science major. The following Essential Functions are the non–academic requirements of the Program, comprising the physical, emotional and professional requirements.

Physical requirements

• Ability to perform manual laboratory procedures with dexterity.
• Ability to operate state–of–the–art instruments, including computers.
• Ability to use a microscope and differentiate microscopic components.
• Ability to perform delicate manipulations that require good hand–eye coordination.

Emotional requirements

• Ability to perform laboratory procedures accurately and quickly, even under stressful conditions.
• Ability to exercise independent judgment and to think logically in the performance of one's duties.
• Ability to organize and to assume responsibility for one's work.

Professional requirements

• Ability to communicate in a professional, positive and tactful manner with patients, physicians, nurses, and other health–care and non–health–care employees, as well as fellow laboratory personnel.
• Ability to maintain patient confidentiality and to exercise ethical judgment, integrity, honesty, dependability and accountability in the performance of one's laboratory responsibilities.
• Ability to perform laboratory tests carefully while maintaining efficiency and organization.
• Ability to exercise critical thinking skills to solve problems.