ZAC's Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences offers a comprehensive scientific studies in the clinical laboratory disciplines: clinical chemistry, hematology, immunology, microbiology and molecular biology. These fields are taught together with cross disciplinary fields: instrumentation and technology, laboratory automation, safety, information systems and quality assessment. The Department offers both significant experience and preparation in medical laboratories routines. We wanted to know more about the department and invited its new chairperson, Prof. Mira Barack, to elaborate:
Are the studies at the Department equivalent to pre-medical studies?
Absolutely, and our graduates are eligible to continue to a four-year medical school.
What sets apart the Department from similar departments in Israel and abroad?
Obviously, our physical setting is very unique- the ancient city of Zefat. More important, what sets us apart are our academic staff and students- most of our personnel have clinical and laboratory background, and most of our students are from the northern periphery, mostly females who acquire a profession that guarantees them social mobility and personal growth.
Was the Department involved in the national efforts to fight COVID-19? What was its contribution to these efforts?
During the first year of the pandemic, the department switched to online teaching, while the labs continued to offer both virtual and frontal teaching according to safety rules. I was asked to lead the establishment of the Ben-Gurion Airport COVID-19 laboratory. The laboratory was built in less than one month, and received the approval of the Ministry of Health to run pooled swab samples by two PCR complementary technologies. The lab was then able to offer more than 20,000 test results per day and performed both rapid (<4h) and usual (<14h ) tests.
Has Covid-19 made the department more in demand?
Since the popularity of the profession seems to be increasing, we believe that the demand of future students will increase also. The actual registration rate has already increased in comparison to previous years.
As the new Department Chairperson, what are your future plans?
The changes I would like to introduce are:
1. Increasing the required annual course hours from 120 to 130.
2. Increasing the teaching lab hours.
3. Adding to our curriculum two new laboratory hours, which consist of a molecular biology lab and a multidisciplinary lab comprising real clinical laboratory basic analyzers, in order to teach our students real life methods before they begin their clinical internship in hospitals and outpatient laboratories.
4. Paying special attention to the interpretation of laboratory test results in general, and to laboratory results during times of crisis and pandemic in particular.
