• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2017

This study investigated the influence factors of retirement expectations among medical technologists at medical centers in Seoul and Gyeonggi area, Korea. Subjects were 158 medical technologists. Using a sampling survey method, data was analyzed between July 2015 and December 2016. There was a negative correlation between educational level and economic preparation, but gender and monthly income did not reach retirement expectation level. Conversely, we found no change in the trends with respect to gender, monthly income; nonetheless, we observed that frustration gradually increased with age and working duration. In conclusion, our findings show that there are four factors that significantly influence retirement expectation and preparation: age, level of education, working duration, and family condition. This study contributes to understanding retirement expectations and can be a reference for retirement preparation in medical technologists.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.153-158
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• 2015

In order to find out a method to improve awareness of biomedical laboratory science about forensic medicine education and suggest a plan for invigoration, we carried out a survey targeting 100 students of biomedical laboratory science of Daegu Health College in Daegu region and implemented their awareness and requirement forensic medicine subject, which suggested very high awareness of most of the students about forensic medicine as a result. Out of 100 respondents, in the result of survey for students' awareness of forensic medicine, 94 (94%) answered that they were aware of it, We could find that they have high expectation from forensic medicine, and current biomedical laboratory science showed very high awareness and requirement for forensic medicine education. Therefore, rather than focusing only on core courses required for medical technologist, it is necessary to set up a program to introduce forensic subjects for expansion of professional areas and activation which can promote employment of medical technologists.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.203-212
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• 2023

Since the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, it has been generally believed that a medical technologists (MTs) are supposed to perform polymerase chain reaction tests and next-generation sequencing (NGS) in the hospitals. However, many do not recognize that the duty of MT for clinical genetic testing has not been stated in the Medical Laws (72.5% for MT, N=200; 62.8% for students, N=123). In this regard, to evaluate the feasibility of MT's role for NGS genetic testing, we requested our subjects to fill out an online survey and analyzed the data. Among them, it shows that the scope of MT's role, including NGS performance should include clinical genetic testing (99.5% for MT, N=200; 86.8% for students, N=123). Also, questions on clinical genetics, which is associated with both cellular genetics and molecular genetic questions should be included in the National MT License Problem Bank (97.5% for MT; 71.4% for students). Based on these results, the Korean Association of Medical Technologists needs to cooperate synergically with the Academic Association of Biomedical Laboratory Science with respect to genetic education and legislation for the future benefit of both MTs and students.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.130-136
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• 2016

The aim of this study was to examine and analyze the infection management status of Jeju-area general hospitals, and in order to convey the importance of infection management, and to determine role plans of medical technologists as infection management staff, the infection management status was examined through surveys targeting 7 general hospitals located in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province. The infection management of Jeju-area medical institutions showed excellence in that all institutions operated an infection management room, there was dedicated manpower, and hospital infection management guidelines were established and executed. However most institutions were operating their infection management room with only 1 nurse, reporting many difficulties in securing dedicated manpower, microbe-related culture deciphering, frequency of multiple-resistance bacteria, infection statistics, and details on microbe testing. Accordingly, it is believed that the medical technologist who can perform the practical tasks of infection management has sufficient qualification and experience in infection management as per the medical law enforcement regulations, and in operation of an infection management room. If medical technologists (infection control microbiological technologist) with expert knowledge on microbes and infection control nurses can execute the tasks as dedicated personnel, the operation of the infection management room will be more advanced. In addition, for proper infection management in the future, the introduction of a medical system specialized in infection management and full support for infection management of vulnerable small/medium hospitals in addition to general hospitals across the country is considered important.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2010

This investigation has been carried out for the purpose of the examination of current Gwangju and Jeonnam clinical pathology students' recognition of their departments and of effective employment guidance. Furthermore, it has examined the students' recognition on two sides; namely, their satisfaction with their own departments and their recognition of the employment of medical technologists. This investigation, with 389 students as its subjects from the clinical pathology departments at 4 universities in the Gwangju-Jeonnam Region, has compared and analyzed the data from the survey with a questionnaire from November 2008 to June 2009 by using the SPSS 12.0 package. Some of the remarkable results from the yielded data are as follows. As for the motivation for their application to the clinical pathology departments, the investigation of the students' satisfaction with their departments has revealed that 47.5% of the subjects indicated recommendation from friends or acquaintances while 22.1% reported that they had been informed of the departments through Internet. 70.4% of the subjects graduated from general high schools, 22.3% from commercial high schools, and 6.2% from technical high schools. Applicants from general high schools tend to decrease in number every year. 28.5% of the students judged professor's capability of lecture as an important part of their acquisition of licenses, and more than 65.6% of the subjects acknowledged the necessity of their self-study at night for the acquisition of license. As for the future prospect of the occupation of clinical technologist, 46.8% of the students replied that it was promising, while 39.1% reported that they had no ideas. From this we can confirm that the students of clinical pathology lacked a viewpoint of occupation and goals for future jobs. The investigation of the students'recognition of the employment of clinical technologists has revealed that 47.8% of them wanted to be employed in the Seoul-Gyeonggi Region due to the properties of their local universities, 29.0% of themlogpecteties of monesly salary to be 1,200,000~1,300,000 won, while 22.4% 1,300,000~1,400,000 won. These fiemres indicated that these students' salary ogpectations were relativplo lower than those from cities ertiprovinces. As for the greatest difficulty after employment, 31.1% of the subjects indicated the confliction among employees from variouatiolleges, 27.3% uncertainty of duties related to es of major, 24.9% bmrdens of self-development.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.271-277
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• 2020

"Health examinations" means medical examinations conducted by health examination institutions, including a physical examination, consultation, physical measurement, diagnostic laboratory test (also known as clinical laboratory test, clinical pathology test), pathology test, and Imaging test for checking the health condition and the prevention and early detection of diseases. The types of health examinations include general health examinations, comprehensive health examinations, special health examinations, and other health examinations. The proportion of the general health examination work of medical technologists working at health examination centers has been estimated to comprise more than 50% of the total work. The cost aspect of suspicious diseases can be estimated to be more than 25%. The cost of diagnostic laboratory test has been estimated to be approximately 5%, and the proportion of medical diagnosis use is 70%. The results show that it is time to revisit whether medical technologists are receiving appropriate social, economic, and reasonable policy treatment in health examination work. The future of medical technologists will further expand their professionalism in diagnostic laboratory test and quality control in precision medicine and telemedicine in the future. Therefore, medical technologists will need to participate proactively in government policy decisions related to national health examinations and make efforts to improve treatment.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.289-296
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• 2018

Opinions regarding interdisciplinary unification of medical laboratory science were analyzed by an online questionnaire distributed to 255 professors and 4,000 hospital practitioners in January of 2018. The recovery rate was 79 (30.9%) for professors and 1,368 (34.2%) for hospital practitioners. In the perception survey on the duality of interdisciplinary, both the professors and the hospital practitioners reported that they felt interdisciplinary integration is necessary. The prerequisite of four-year integration was the establishment of institute of accreditation and standardization of curriculum, and the requirements for the four-year integration were considered important for adjustment of student quota and standardization of curriculum. In the four-year integrated approach, the opinion that only universities that passed the accreditation evaluation should operate a four-year system was highest among professors and hospital practitioners. The optimum capacity of university students was less than 40 in cases of 4-year integration. In conclusion, the above results suggest that the professors and hospital practitioners realize 4-year interdisciplinary integration is necessary to produce a competent medical technologist, and the institute of accreditation, standardization of curriculum, and student quota adjustment should be presupposed for 4-year integration.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.314-323
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• 2023

This study assessed the desired wage guidelines for medical technologists (MTs), mainly primary care providers and those in secondary medical institutions, in 16 cities and provinces in Korea. A survey of 1,327 MTs was conducted using a structured Google questionnaire from August 1, 2022, to September 30, 2022. The wage levels differed according to gender, age, education, career, region, and employment status. There were differences in wage levels according to gender and region with less than one year of career, and the wage gap was relatively larger for woman than man. An awareness of wage compensation appropriate for work performance, and technology value compensation were low at 2.01, 2.23, and 2.30, respectively. This study suggests that primary and secondary medical institutions should provide reasonable wages compensation for MTs' work in order to create an environment where MTs can receive stable jobs and work. Moreover, the Korean Association of Medical Technologists should establish a cooperative system so that the starting wage of MTs in primary and secondary medical institutions can receive the desired wage of 34 million won.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.187-202
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• 2017

The Korean Society for Clinical Laboratory Science publishes the Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science (KJCLS) as the official journal for the Korean Association of Medical Technologists. This year, 2017, marks the 50th anniversary of KJCLS. The original name was "the Korean Journal of Medical Technologists" (Volume 1, 1967~Volume 26, 1994), which was replaced with the "Korean Journal of the Clinical Laboratory Science" (Volume 27, 1995~Volume 35, 2003) and "the Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science" (Volume 26, 2004~Present). The purpose of this study was to provide a framework for further development of KJCLS. In 1998, the National Research Foundation of Korea began the journal assessment service. The major domestic databases are KCI, KOFST, and KAMJE; the major international databases are SCI Index; SCI Core, SCI-Extended), SCOPUS, MEDLINE, and PUBMED. KJCLS has been registered with KCI of the National Research Foundation of Korea since 2014. More than 1,300 articles have been published, which all have made tremendous contributions to the field. To index KJCLS in the journal databases, we measured the value to understand the vocational level and social position. KJCLS is faced with a great challenge; immense effort will be needed to accomplish the original goal of KJCLS to become an internationally recognized journal. Ultimately, the goal of the Korean Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and the Korean Association of Medical Technologists should be to register KJCLS in databases such as KCI and SCOPUS.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.26-31
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• 2013

The cytology of sputum specimens, at a medical facility in Korea, is using the liquid-based cytology and conventional smear method. It confirms the diagnosis using conventional smear methods and the liquid-based cytology. In addition, the diagnosis uses two kinds of each method, compares the suitability, sensitivity and specificity for each test and tries to understand the efficient method needed. It divided sputum specimens in half and liquid-based cytology. A conventional smear method was conducted and the Papanicolaou's staining was conducted using Autostainer. Diagnosed each slide of staining produced smear slides specimens by using an optical microscope. The result of the liquid-based cytology and conventional smear method was that the liquid-based cytology was of a higher-grade than the conventional smear method. It was 36.8%, and 62.8% in the same condition. But only one case was of a lower grade. Liquid-based cytology showed 86.2% of adequacy, 31.0% of sensitivity and 97.5% of specificity. The conventional smear method showed 54.4% of adequacy, 19.6% of sensitivity and 100% of specificity. If it was conducted with two methods at the same time, the results would be similar to the liquid-based cytology. In conclusion, liquid-based cytology has a more superior adequacy and sensitivity than the conventional smear method. The combination of the two methods is similar to the result of only conducting a liquid-based cytology. Conducting a liquid-based cytology rather than the combination of the two ways of sputum cytoscopy, is to be considered as an efficient method to achieve diagnostic accuracy, reduce labor of clinical technologist and pathologist, and to reduce the expense of patients.