Medical laboratory scientists. Cytologists. Histotechnologists. Pathologists' assistants. Medical laboratory assistants. These careers represent rewarding, high-impact, and in-demand professions, and most students have never heard of them. The reason why is straightforward: Students do not know these careers exist.
A Growing Workforce Crisis
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that more than 22,600 medical laboratory professionals will be needed each year through 2034. Yet only approximately 8,000 students graduate annually from accredited laboratory training programs. That threatens the foundation of quality patient care across the country.
But within that challenge lies enormous opportunity. For laboratories, healthcare systems, and career advocates willing to invest in exposure and education, the pathway for science students is there. The most effective way to spark that redirection is simple: bring students in. Let them see, touch, and experience what a laboratory career actually looks like through internships geared specifically toward high school students interested in careers in science.
The Barrier to Career Advocacy
Laboratory professionals understand the value of mentorship and career advocacy better than anyone. Many entered the field because someone took the time to show them the way. But starting an internship program from scratch is a daunting task. Securing institutional buy-in, building curriculum, developing templates, managing compliance, and sustaining the program year over year requires time and expertise that most laboratory leaders simply cannot spare. The result: promising internship programs never get off the ground, and the workforce gap widens.
ASCP has recognized this barrier and built a solution.
Introducing the ASCP Internship Academy
The ASCP Internship Academy is a comprehensive course that equips laboratory professionals, educators, and administrators with everything they need to design, launch, and sustain a successful STEM-based internship program.
The program includes video teaching sessions, instructional documents, and customizable templates covering the full spectrum of internship development: how to start a program, how to calculate your laboratory's staff vacancy rate, how to make the case to hospital executives for using unspent personnel funds, how to manage interns effectively, and how to sustain the program for long-term impact.
The Academy is directed toward high school juniors and seniors, students in STEM programs, and college students; precisely the audience that can be redirected into laboratory careers before their professional paths are set.
Proven Impact: A Story Worth Telling
The power of a well-run laboratory internship is not theoretical. Erika Figueroa was a college biology student with no clear career direction when she spent a summer shadowing laboratory staff at Boston Children's Hospital. Within weeks, she discovered a profession she had never heard of: a pathologists' assistant.
"I think of my profession as the middleman between the surgeon and the clinician," she says. "With each specimen, I am reminded that it represents a patient." Today, Ms. Figueroa is a certified pathologists' assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, a career trajectory that began with a single internship opportunity.
Benefits for Laboratories and the Broader Workforce
The ASCP Internship Academy delivers value at multiple levels. For individual laboratories, a structured internship program creates a built-in pathway for future hires—students who already know the environment, the culture, and the work. It strengthens relationships with local schools and universities, enhances the department's visibility within the institution, and contributes to workforce diversity by opening doors to students who may otherwise never have considered a laboratory career.
For the broader workforce, the cumulative effect of hundreds of laboratories running sustainable internship programs could meaningfully narrow that workforce shortage. Every student who discovers a passion for laboratory science through an internship is one more professional joining a field that urgently needs them.
Upon completion of the Internship Academy course, participants will be prepared to launch a sustainable internship model that continuously cultivates new laboratory professionals, year after year, class after class.
Take the Next Step
The laboratory workforce crisis will not solve itself — but it can be solved, one internship program at a time. The ASCP Internship Academy gives laboratory leaders the tools, templates, and guidance to become the career advocates their communities need, without adding unnecessary burden to already stretched teams.
Purchase the ASCP Internship Academy today and take the first step toward building the next generation of laboratory professionals.
The ASCP Internship Academy is available for purchase at the ASCP Store. For more information about ASCP workforce development initiatives, visit ascp.org.
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