Minority recruitment: an untapped resource for the MT shortage.

If the short-staffed lab field is to succeed in attracting more minority students, it must aggressively pursue them and furnish role models in key positions.

Medical technology faces its most significant challenge of the past 20 years. Struggling against a shortage of personnel,

Minorities have made employment gains in clinical laboratories but mostly on the lower rungs of the job ladder. They are underrepresented at the professional levels of the lab field and health care in general.

We will demonstrate that point with statistics on hospital employees. As a context for the data that follow, keep this breakdown in mind: The U.S. Census Bureau estimated in 1986 that whites constituted 76.9 per cent of the population; blacks, 12.1 per cent; Hispanics, 7.9 per cent; and other groups , 3.1 per cent (including Indian or Alaskan native Americans, and individuals of Asian or Pacific origin).

According to a 1987 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission summary, the hospital field consisted of 2.65 million workers. Of hospital officials and managers, 89.3 per cent were white, 6.2 per cent were black, 2.2 per cent were Spanish-surnamed Americans, 2.0 per cent were Asian, and 0.3 per cent were American Indian.

In the professional category (defined as occupations requiring college degrees or a comparable background-M.D., Ph.D., B.S., etc.), 87.9 per cent were white, 5.1 per cent were black, 4.9 percent were Asian, 1.9 were of Spanish descent, and 0.2 per cent were American Indian.

In the technician category (occupations requiring basic scientific knowledge and manual skill obtained in two years of post-highschool education), 79.2 per cent were white, 13.6 per cent were black, 3.9 per cent were of Spanish descent, 3.0 per cent were Asian, and 0.3 per cent were American Indian.

Whites dominated lesser jobs as well, but they were joined by higher proportions of blacks and Hispanics. Among service workers (nurses' aides, orderlies, janitors, guards, guides, and cooks, to name a few), 58.9 per cent were white, 30.7 per cent were black, 7.7 were Hispanic, 2.3 per cent were Asian, and 0.4 per cent were Indian.