WSU's Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences offers a Clinical Laboratory Assistant (CLA) certification. As a certified clinical laboratory assistant, you will be able to perform lab tests that help to detect, diagnose and study diseases. You will learn core laboratory skills primarily required for testing in physician office labs and other decentralized testing sites.

Before you apply, you must be employed by a clinical laboratory and have the support of your laboratory manager in order to complete the competency checklist for the course with a qualified mentor. As an online student, you will work with a laboratory professional at your facility who will serve as a mentor in order to perform the hands on competencies necessary to complete the course.

To be certified as a Clinical Laboratory Assistant, you will need to take one online course, CLS 1000 Core Clinical Laboratory Skills, which is a three-credit class offered fall, spring and summer semesters.

The CLS 1000 course is designed to provide additional training to individuals employed in the health care industry who may be interested in learning an additional set of medical skills to enhance their employability. The program is designed to encourage medical assistants, phlebotomists, certified nursing practitioners and other health care workers to achieve competencies which better serve patient care in settings requiring basic laboratory testing as a part of the facility's health care services.

The CLS 1000 course is designed to teach core clinical laboratory skills to individuals from various health care professions. The curriculum will focus on basic laboratory methods in quality control, quality assurance, information recording and transfer, normal and abnormal laboratory values, and problem recognition. You will receive basic technical instruction in phlebotomy, specimen collection and processing, and laboratory instrumentation in the areas of hematology, serology, urinalysis, and clinical chemistry.

After successful completion the CLS 1000 course (a grade of C+ or better) you will be designated as a CLA level assistant IV, which is recognized by the health care industry.

If you wish to continue to further your education and apply to the WSU online Clinical Laboratory Technician program, you can take CLS 1003 Introduction to Clinical Immunology, which is offered spring semester and is  a 1 credit hour class.  The CLS 1000 and 1003 courses can be taken in place of the CLS 1113 course.

If you are interested in talking CLS 1000, refer to the application checklist.