14 Professions That Are Ridiculously Underpaid And 7 That Are So Overpaid, It’s Wild

21.

UNDERPAID: “Medical lab technicians, medical lab scientists, and clinical lab scientists are waaaay underpaid! Most people don’t even know what we are and what we do. We have the same education as nurses, if not more, depending on whether you’re an MLT vs. MLS/CLS, but we get paid 40–60% less than nurses. But our work is two-thirds of the diagnostics that go into discovering what’s wrong or monitoring the patient and their treatment. Without us and our work, your doctor is guessing. Since we’re the unknown, hidden in the basement aspect of patient care, everyone from hospital admin to the doctors and nurses looks down on us and treats us like the red-headed stepchild.”

“We’re a convenient scapegoat for nursing mistakes. Ever had a nurse say something like, ‘Oh, the lab messed up,’ or, ‘The lab needs more/lost something’? Our school programs are disappearing, and we have a worse shortage than in nursing. Without us in the lab, a hospital cannot function.”

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