The growth patterns of the medical technology profession in South Africa

Background: Constant appraisal of healthcare workforce trends is vital; this measure determines the adequacy of the workforce in meeting its society’s healthcare demands. This includes determining the number of the incoming workforce (students, interns) and the active or practising workforce relevant registries.Objective: This study aimed to examine patterns of workforce growth in the medical technology profession (students, interns and practitioners) from 2008 to 2018 in South Africa.Methods: Student, intern and practitioner medical technology registries, from the 2012/2013, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) annual reports, were analysed. The number of National Health Laboratory Service and private laboratory posts were secured from the National Health Laboratory Service plan performance report. A comparison between the total number of South African medical technology (private and public) posts occupied versus the HPCSA practitioner 2016 register was completed, to determine the saturation status.Results: Annual student, intern, and practitioner registries indicated a mean growth of 6.8%, 28.9%, and 0.7% from 2008 to 2018. The transition of interns to practitioners is progressively dwindling (2015–2018). The practitioner register showed a 1.2% decline in registration from 2013 until 2018. In 2016, only 55.9% of the HPCSA registered medical technologists were employed (p 0.001).Conclusion: There are more medical technologists than available public and private sector posts. The progressively growing student register compared to the dwindling practitioner register indicates attrition in the profession. An investigation identifying the reasons why graduates neglect to register as practising medical technologists should be undertaken.

Preserving Patchogue: A Small Institution Rehouses and Digitizes Glass Plate Negatives

In 2015, the Greater Patchogue Historical Society in Long Island, New York, received a gift of nearly 2,000 glass plate negatives dating from the early 20th century. While the donor alluded to rare images of this small town and its people, the collection presented a series of preservation concerns. Many of the objects were soiled, and almost all were still in their original acidic paper sleeves. Determined to both protect and utilize the collection, this small institution, with the assistance of a graduate student intern, formalized a preservation plan that also created multiple points of access to the visual and historical information that these objects contained. After minimally cleaning, rehousing, and photographing a selected portion of the negatives, the digital files were later processed with editing software so that the organization's members and local citizens could see the historic images. In addition to digitizing the negatives, the original sleeves were imaged to preserve valuable information, such as people's names, the location of views, or a negative's date. This ongoing project is an example of how smaller institutions can make a meaningful influence in their local communities by preserving photographic objects and implementing methods of digitization.

Technology Experiences of Student Interns in a One to One Mobile Program

This article describes how a group of student intern teachers (n = 51) in a one to one teacher education iPad program were asked to reflect using Experience Sampling Method (ESM) on their use of technology in the classroom during internship. Interns also completed summative reflections and class discussions. Data collected both in online and paper-based summative reflections were subjected to content analysis and triangulated with classroom discussions. The responses showed that interns tended toward teacher-focused uses of technology and were frustrated by their inability to use technology due to infrastructure or cooperating teacher beliefs and practices related to technology. Implications and plans for improved support is discussed.

Feedback From Internship Mentors in Technical Communication Internships

Documenting and characterizing interactions between student interns and their mentors in the workplace offers perspective on student learning and enculturation that can help us introduce these ways of learning to students in the technical communication classroom, even before the internship. Three student intern conversations in the internship setting are the focus of this close discourse analysis, framed by 6-month-long case studies and Vygotsky’s learning theory. Results indicate that many similarities exist between classroom feedback and mentor feedback in the internship, but that differences in student agency may make negotiation important in the technical communication classroom.