Careers

Career Description

Is it viral or bacterial? Is it benign or is it cancerous? These are some of the questions you'll answer as a Histopathology specialist. Working in a hospital lab, you'll prepare diseased tissue samples for microscopic examination so they can be diagnosed. You'll also perform various lab duties like recordkeeping, instrument maintenance and assisting pathologists to perform autopsies.

Career Tasks

• Receive and prepare surgical specimens for tissue diagnosis
• Prepare specimens for microscopic examination through manual or automated embedding procedures using a variety of chemical agents
• Maintain records of all surgical, cytological and autopsy specimens
• Prepare specimens and diagnostic reports for shipment to various military and civilian medical facilities
• Maintain laboratory instruments and equipment
• Assist the pathologist in performing postsurgical (autopsy) examination of specimens
• Eligible to take a national registry examination and become a credentialed histopathology technician through the American Society of Clinical Pathologists

Relevant Interests & Skills

• Health and Medicine
• Business Operations
• Science
• Mathematics

Training

After eight-and-a-half weeks of Basic Military Training, every Airman goes to technical training to learn their career. Here's the basic information about Histopathology technical training:

School location: Walter Reed Medical Center [MD]

Length of course: 179 days

College degree earned: Histologic Technology

College credits earned: 49