By Joan Odafe
Lagos – The Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) has urged its members to improve on their professional skills in order to surmount operational challenges.
Mr Alexander Uneze, Chairman of the Festac/Satellite Chapter of association, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Uneze spoke with NAN on the sidelines of the 2018 Capacity Building Corporate Business Workshop organised by the association.
Theme of the workshop was: “Medical Laboratory Practice: Surviving and Thriving in A Challenging Business Environment’’.
Uneze said that it was necessary for medical laboratory scientists to come together, re-strategise and come up with ways to improve on their practices.
He said that the workshop had opened their eyes to see those areas they had ignored, particularly the business angle of their practices.
“From the lectures we have been receiving, we are highly impressed, because what we are learning are practicable and can be easily applied to improve our practice and increase our customers’ reach.
“It has also opened our eyes to certain things we were taking for granted.
“In school, we were taught the basic professional things, but this angle of the business side was not part of it.
“Most of the things we learnt focused on customers’ relationship, the ways and manners to treat them to be able to endear them to us and our businesses,” he said.
Also, Mrs Ijeoma Ugwudi, Auditor of the association, told NAN that the aim of the seminar was to help members in the private sector to get the knowledge of what they need to do.
Ugwudi explained that some of the topics they learnt include Business Ethics; Business Survival Strategies; How to Purchase A Business or Franchise and Getting The Right Insurance.
She said that the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and social media would also help to improve medical laboratory practices, because it would be easier to reach out to clients.
“Running a business is difficult; sometimes you don’t have electricity supply and we need it to do our business.
“The patients too don’t understand when you need to increase your price to meet up with your expenses because you’ve spent more purchasing fuel to do your investigations.
“In these days of social media, any little thing can spoil someone’s business name.
“If people know the result you get is what they will get anywhere else in the world, they will keep coming; but if they can’t relate with your result, you won’t see them again,’’ Ugwudi said.