A phlebotomist is a person who is a part of the allied health care team and who has been trained to perform phlebotomy procedures in hospitals, health care offices, medical laboratories, blood banks and forensic agencies.

Most commonly, Phlebotomy procedures include:

• Obtaining blood for diagnostic testing.
• Removing blood for transfusion purposes.
• Removing blood for therapeutic purposes in individuals with certain disease processes.

In addition, the phlebotomist may be required to carry out any or all of the following duties:

• Preparing and transporting specimens while ensuring stability of specimens.
• Promoting public relations with patients, families and co-workers.
• Assisting in collecting and documenting workload data.
• Maintaining safe working conditions.
• Performing laboratory computer operations.
• Performing point-of-care testing (POCT) such as glucose monitoring.
• Doing quality checks on POCT instruments.
• Doing other testing such as rapid strep and breath alcohol processing.
• Processing specimens and performing basic laboratory tests.

The Phlebotomy program at Miller-Motte prepares graduates to work as entry-level phlebotomists. Students receive training in standard medical procedures for specimen collection and handling, special collections, laboratory tests, and review for the certifying examination.

Phlebotomists are usually supervised by medical technologists, lab managers or physicians. Some medical technicians specialize in a small number of tests, and perform the same actions multiple times a day. Other medical technicians will be expected to master the protocols for many different tests.

• EKG technician
• Cardiovascular technician
• Phlebotomist
• Surgical technician
• Dialysis technician
• Sonography technician
• X-ray technician