`You have to be able to think logically and work laterally," says Niamh Philpott, a medical laboratory technician at St James's Hospital, Dublin. "You need to be able to handle three or four jobs at the one time, prioritise well, and to be organised and efficient, and apply your common sense especially when you start working on call."

And, she quips, "an ability to empathise with patients is important." In spite of these demanding attributes, Philpott is passionate about her job. "I love it," she says with emphasis. "It makes the job more interesting if you're interested in the actual patient. We'd have certain patients for years. We'd be very familiar with their names. We'd know if they had gone into remission or if they'd relapsed. You're definitely aware of those patients."

Her job involves routine blood-testing. She works with between 10 and 15 others on a daily basis in the main haematology lab. Staff is rotated so that Philpott can also work in some of the hospital's specialised units. Looking back, she says the five-year course at DIT "really gave you a good experience of what it was going to be like in the lab." Philpott, who comes from Kilkenny city, read about the course while skimming through the DIT prospectus in Leaving Cert in 1990. She wanted a course that was in the science area. The fact that she had honours chemistry and biology in the Leaving Cert made all the difference in the course. "If you weren't on top of your chemistry you might find first and second year difficult."

Finally, she choose the course in Kevin Street because "I didn't want to go to a university." The idea of being in a small class environment "where you'd know your teachers appealed to me. What attracted me to it was the practical component. I like being able to apply my knowledge and also the third year in-service training appealed to me. It was a break from college and it was a financial break for me as well. You are paid student rate but that was nice, a bit of independence."

There were 23 in the class, including three young men. "For some reason, the course is not a major attraction for men, but there are more now," Philpott explains.

She recalls second year as being "demanding and challenging." In DIT there are "long hours" with practical work keeping students there until five and six in the evening. "The lab component was brilliant, and it's consistent the whole way through the course," she remembers.

"It trains you very specifically for what you're going to be doing at the end of the day. They train you to be a good technician."

The subjects in second year are "very broad. We did them in a fair amount of depth. We did have a lot of work on our plate but everyone was looking forward to third year."

She did in-service training the Mater Hospital, Dublin. This involved seven-week periods in each section - haematology, blood transfusion, biochemistry, histology and microbiology. After this year, Philpott had to decide what area she would specialise in - "I knew what I liked and what I didn't. The year was very educational. The experience was really, really good. You have to get in there and just work."

Then it was back to Kevin Street for another two years to complete the degree course. She chose haematology and blood transfusion as her specialisms, with cellular pathology as her minor subject.

Final year was her favourite year of all the academic years. "It all fell into place for me. I knew that I had choosen the right subjects."