title: The quality of medical laboratory practice in Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies.
abstract: The introduction of automated chemical analyzers in the laboratory service has the potential of adversely affecting professionalism in laboratory practice. The present study assesses the quality of medical laboratory technicians in Trinidad and Tobago using structured questionnaires. Some of the critical questions included job status, years of experience, training, qualification(s) and knowledge of quality assurance and its application. About 82% of laboratory technicians responded to the study. The majority of technicians (62%) had diploma certificates while only one (1.2%) had a postgraduate degree. Although the majority (91.7%) of technicians knew about quality assurance, 36% learnt on the job and 59% knew they were not professionally trained. The results showed that there is paucity of highly trained laboratory technicians in Trinidad and Tobago and this has significant implications on the technical initiative and quality of medical laboratory practice in this country. We recommend the establishment of appropriate professional institutions for training medical laboratory technologists and regular expert inspection and accreditation of all medical laboratories in the country.
authors.affiliation: Unit of Pathology & Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad.
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Ezenwaka
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000592:standards*; D008297:Male; D017056:Medical Laboratory Personnel / Q000193:education / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014300:Trinidad and Tobago