Who is a Clinical Laboratory Scientist?

Payscale of a Clinical Laboratory scientist?

• I was wondering what a clinical laboratory scientist's wage is annually.

• Answer:

  You can go and check out the scales at career sites if you want and get some numbers, however in my experience it is very much relative and specific to where you live, what company you work for, your experience level, your education and most importantly-the type of clinical laboratory work you will be doing. For example if you are going to work for a company like LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics and all you have is a BS, BA, MS or MA, and are fresh out of school, then you are not looking at a very good salary at all. In North Carolina this salary would average 30-35 K per yer. Depending on the state in which you live, you can take that number with a +/- 10% margin for shift. Now if you have a BS, BA, MS or MA and have a very good deal of experience and are specialized in a specific area (like Immunoassay, GC-MS, Elemental Analysis) and are very good at new method development, advanced troubleshooting and are willing to work on clinical trials and COC samples, then your salary can be somewhat higher, possibly averaging 40K (+/-10% again, depending on state/reigion). If you are a Ph.D, then you can make a decent living as a department head in a clinical lab, however you will have to have several years of experience and a very expansive working knowledge of the department you would be heading up. Overall, there is not nearly as much medicine in the clinical laboratory sciences as there is in the industrial laboratory sciences and research laboratory sciences. The big money is in Research, Development and Engineering departments out there in big pharma, surfactant chemstry, environmental laboratory sciences, etc. One thing I can say (especially if you are just getting ready to graduate) is that clinical labs are most likely to hire someone with no experience in the work force, so it is for that reason that many lab people start out in clinical labs. I can tell you that I got some priceless experience from my time there and if it were not for the skills I aquired there along with more schooling, I would not be were I am now and making the salary I am now. Even with the completion of more schooling, without that expereince and skill set, I would definatley not get as many job ops as I do now.