MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENTISTS ARE NOT CLINICAL LABORATORY SCIENTISTS IN NIGERIA.

Elsewhere around the world, the phrases "clinical laboratory scientists" and "medical laboratory scientists" have been used interchangeably. The basis for referring the professionals in those phrases have legal basis in the laws of those countries. In Nigeria, the phrase "clinical laboratory scientists" is not only nonexistent in our medical and legal lexicography, it is also not in contemplation of the drafters of our statutes. The only space for its accommodation would have been in the Section 18 of the Interpretation Act which states thus:

Section 18:

(2) Where by subsection (1) of this section or any other enactment a meaning is assigned to a word, parts of speech related to the word have corresponding meanings.

In all the laws on medical and clinical practices in Nigeria, only one of such laws mentioned the phrase "clinical laboratory". This phrase is purely for medical practice, and not for medical laboratory practice. That law is the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act. The law cited above regulates medical practice.

Other relevant laws, like the Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria Act, mentioned "medical laboratory ". The law in fact also provided for medical laboratory science and scientists. Is the medical laboratory scientists used in this Act exchangeable or interchangeable with the phrase of clinical laboratory scientists? It has now become imperative to know if, in Nigeria, medical laboratory scientists can now be referred to as clinical laboratory scientists as done elsewhere. Are these two terms the same or are they different in Nigeria. In fact, is the phrase "medical laboratory scientists" a health or technological nomenclature in the Nigerian context of health care and health technological delivery.

According to jobs.mayoclinic.org (Mayo Clinic is the best Teaching Hospital in the United States of America), for a medical laboratory scientist to qualify as a clinical laboratory scientist, he needs a completion of a clinical laboratory internship.

The import of this is that a medical laboratory scientist in the United States of America, is not yet a clinical laboratory scientist until the medical laboratory scientist undergoes the clinical laboratory internship. These clinical laboratory scientists work under the pathologists.

The Act No 11 of 2003 created the medical laboratory science profession. This Act incorporated the prior existing laboratory technicians into the new profession and called them medical laboratory technicians. The training of laboratory technicians which was hitherto done in the hospitals suddenly stopped as they now belonged to the medical laboratory sciences.

In Nigeria, the process of clinical laboratory science internship is not provided in any statute. This is in stark contrast to the provision for clinical internships in the clinical professions by their enabling laws. The obvious reasons are not farfetched; medical laboratory science is not a clinical profession in Nigeria.

The sudden dearth of laboratory technicians in the Teaching Hospitals due to the ceasation of in-hospital training of laboratory technicians has prompted the Executive Arm of government to issue circulars for the commencement of clinical laboratory science internships in the hospitals for the medical laboratory scientists who now do the work of the laboratory technicians.

That means that a medical laboratory scientist could undertake two types of internship, namely medical laboratory internship and clinical laboratory internship. The former is undertaken in the medical laboratory science laboratories where laboratory reagents and equipment are produced; while the latter is undertaken in the clinical laboratories which are the hospital Pathology laboratories.

Medical laboratory scientists who work in the hospital laboratories are medical laboratory scientists. They are not clinical laboratory scientists. The law creating the profession is specific on the name of the professionals of that profession. The creation or existence of the cadre of clinical laboratory scientists can only come by law alterations, or by the regulations of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria in charge of clinical laboratory practice.

©Awkadigwe Fredrick Ikenna 2017.

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