Background: Medical laboratories play a vital role in patient care and needs a competent skilled workforce to deliver this essential service. The current process of medical technologist training is a summative assessment consisting of two written 3 hour papers that correlates theoretical knowledge acquired at a tertiary level with the practical internship. There is no requirement for the assessment of technical competence by the Health Professional Council of South Africa (HPCSA).

Methods: A quantitative design was used for assessing the technical competence of the candidates who were eligible to write the National Board Examination by using an adapted South African National Accreditation System (SANAS) witnessing tool across ten Clinical Pathology test procedures by direct observation.

Results: Some candidates that were directly observed in each of the Clinical Pathology test procedures were deemed not yet competent in compliance and adherence to Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s), acceptability of results, internal quality control procedures and the acceptability of the outcome and availability of signed training and competency records on the direct observation checklist.

Conclusion: From this study it can be concluded that assessment of technical competency for Intern Medical Technologists in Clinical Pathology could augment current assessment systems of Intern Medical Technologists for conferment of professional designation and a policy review is recommended.

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