PREFACE

A healthy community is a happy community, one in which we all
like to live.

To a degree, our health depends upon the food we eat. It also
depends, however, on a vast network of medical sciences and services
which in North America are available to every citizen whenever the
need arises. One branch of this network is Medical Laboratory Tech-
nology, a service vital to the practice of medicine but one about which
the layman hears little.

Laboratories are an integral part of medicine. Without them there
would be little use in erecting multi-million dollar hospitals and clinics.
And it would be futile to establish Departments of Public Health.

It is in these laboratories that the medical technologist works daily
with microscopes, test tubes and other scientific equipment that most
people forget about after high school. It is the technologist’s job to
help medical men keep you and your families well and healthy.

Medical laboratory technologists also are at work in the nation’s
universities where, in the medical schools, new wonders are constantly
being wrought.

What actually do we do?

Let us suppose there is an accident, a bad one. The patient, maybe
your own child, is in an acute state of shock. Transfusions are neces-
sary. By diligent and careful testing in the laboratory, the technologist
provides the doctor with the information needed to make the trans-
fusions safe, and to save your child’s life and maintain intact your
family circle. This is just one example of the type of work undertaken
in the medical laboratory.

The 20th Century being what it is, the interest of governments, both
provincial and federal, is increasing in health consciousness. And
rightly so. The need for adequate health services and the scope and
importance of your medical laboratories increase daily. They become
more complicated, as does the pattern of every-day living. We urge
you to support the movement for better medical services, first by learn-
ing their function and importance to you and, secondly, by intelligent
conversation about them with your family and friends.

In 1956, the American Society of Medical Technologists and the
Canadian Society of Laboratory Technologists will hold the First
North American Conference of Medical Laboratory Technologists
at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. Delegates from all
over Canada and the United States will gather there to further their
knowledge and foster understanding and interest for the benefit of
mankind generally.

Funds raised through the sale of this booklet will contribute to
the success of that meeting, and that success will be passed on to you
in the form of medical services. It is our hope that this booklet will
contribute to your cooking pleasure and stimulate your interest in our
work.

One more point: Let us help you and your family solve your career
problems by sending on to you detailed information on the work of
the medical laboratory technologist. It has unlimited opportunities.

ILEEN KEMP, B.A., M.Sc., R.T.,

Executive Secretary,

Canadian Society of Laboratory Technologists,
294 Barton Street East,

Hamilton, Canada.

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