PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The University of Maine at Presque Isle recently held a grand opening for a training center that aims to help students in the medical laboratory technology program gain even more real-life skills before heading into the workforce.
The MLT Training Center, located in Pullen Hall Room 115, serves as both a lecture and lab space for second-year MLT students before they take part in clinical practicums at area hospitals. At 900-square-feet, the space includes brand new microscopes, centrifuges, sinks, an eye wash station and shower, and biomedical equipment that is typically used in a hospital medical laboratory.
Previously, second-year MLT students would spend 20 weeks in their clinical practicum but now those same students will spend three weeks on the UMPI campus completing daylong “shifts” from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the training center. Leigh Belair, assistant professor and co-director of the MLT Program of Maine at UMPI, said that the set-up allows students to experience an everyday work shift of MLTs at a controlled pace before moving on to their hospital clinical practicums.
UMPI was able to convert what was originally a traditional classroom into the training center through an initiative that fund raised a total of $200,000, with the majority of money coming from a $50,000 Davis Family Foundation grant and a $15,000 Libra Foundation grant.
Additional funds were provided locally by Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle, Northern Light Laboratory, Cary Medical Center in Caribou, Houlton Regional Hospital, the American Society of Clinical Pathology Foundation, Sysmex America, Inc., Fisher Scientific/LAXCO, Dr. Joseph H. Roe, Jr., and the Maine/New Hampshire State Society of American Medical Technologists.
Through the use of the new lab space, Belair also hopes to increase the number of students graduating from the MLT program in both May and December as an effort to respond to increased demands locally for certified MLTs.
“We hope to expand the program so that we’re able to have one cohort of second-year students graduate in May and another cohort graduate in December,” Belair said, during a grand opening ceremony for the training center held on Thursday, Jan. 10.
The MLT Program of Maine is a collaborative program with UMPI and the University of Maine at Augusta for which courses are delivered through videoconferencing at locations around the state. Students typically earn their associate degrees in two years and then take the certification exam from the American Society of Clinical Pathologists or the American Medical Technologists.
Currently there are four second-year MLT students who began their on-campus lab work on Monday, Jan. 7, at UMPI. Unlike in the traditional academic calendar, each cohort will begin work in the UMPI lab before the semester begins and immediately begin their hospital practicum after three weeks.
MLT student Ann Nesserschmidt, who is originally from Germany but now lives in Montecello, had been studying in California when she came across information about the MLT Program of Maine and decided that pursuing a medical field that was both rewarding and in high demand would be the right fit for her. She said she is excited to have begun working in the new training center at UMPI and hopes to find a job as a hospital MLT either in the Presque Isle or Houlton area after graduating in May.
“I think working in a real lab space like this will help us develop skills that are very specific to working in a hospital lab,” Nesserschmidt said. “It makes the quality of the program even greater.”
In recent years, UMPI has focused more of its efforts on medical-related fields to combat local shortages in both high and entry-level positions. This past fall, UMPI began the first semester of its collaborative nursing program with the University of Maine at Fort Kent and finished the second session of its phlebotomy certification program with SAD 1 Adult and Community Education. Students in the phlebotomy program are allowed to transfer three credits toward the MLT degree program if they so choose.
Greg LaFrancois, president of Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital, noted that 12 percent of current job openings at its laboratory are for medical lab technicians and that he expects those MLT openings to increase to 20 percent during the next several years, particularly as older technicians retire. Northern Light serves as one of the local clinical practicum sites for MLT students.
“We’re glad to be able to partner with UMPI to recruit the next cohort of MLTs in Aroostook County,” LaFrancois said. “At Northern Light we have a lot of technicians who will be retiring during the next few years and having this program locally allows us to find quality folks to take on that work.”
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- Second-year medical laboratory technology student Sarina Raposo uses one of the new microscopes set up in the MLT Training Center in UMPI’s Pullen Hall. The recently opened training center will allow MLT students to complete hours in a more controlled lab setting before starting their clinical practicum at a local hospital. (Melissa Lizotte)
