Okay. Being a MLT, you work in a very rigid environment, where you almost have to account for every step, due to documentation and traceability. You also have time pressure, in order to get results out in a timely manner. It's a high stress environment, with a lot of rule following, and just plain pedantry. There's a lot of documentation, quality control etc. etc. Depending on how rigid management is, it can be a living hell for INFP, or pretty tolerable, but this job, at least for me, is highly dependent on the people you work with, for enjoyability. If there's is a good mix of F's and P's, the constrictions can seem less suffocating and the job can be enjoyable, but if it's a strongly STJ environment, there is a large amount of blind policy, and very little consideration for the actual situation at hand.
When I do work in the medical labs, I choose smaller multi discipline labs, because I get extremely bored in the bigger labs, where you specialise in one discipline.
Being multidisciplinary is not for every one, because you have to have a high capacity for multitasking, and you are constantly reprioritising the urgency of work coming in, but you have to chop and change different mindsets, which was difficult for me at first. You also need to be extremely flexible (in mind set, and with changing circumstances). This INFP is very good at her job though, because she can think fast on her feet, and I have a great strength in being to trouble shoot, and anticipate problems before they occur. I also have better management of work flow because I can visualise the whole, and I have one hell of good memory. I can keep track of multiple flows of work.
INFP will have problems, if following procedures, policies, and quality control, is put over and above, patient considerations. My main focus is getting results out for doctors so they can treat patients.
One of my main frustrations, is over trouble shooting, and on the spot repairs of analysers. In a very strongly STJ environment, if it's not in the operating manuals, no matter how logically you explain, even if QC is good, you have good reproducibility of results etc, etc it's not acceptable.
Transfusion science is particularly frustrating in this regard...I have had to some times go over managers heads, to haematologist (doctors) heads of department over certain situations, where you quite literally have patients lives dependent on the decisions you make, because it's not following the manual, or policy. No matter how you nut it out logically, and believe me, I can be logical in those situations.
One of the biggest things, I have found hard is I often get derided hard for my emotional nature. When ever I've stepped out the labs, though, people think I'm extremely cold and matter of fact...and very pragmatic.
Personal Politics can be rife, and often you end up working very hard and very long hours. It's not an ideal job for INFP, because you need a really thick skin and you need to be able to stand up for yourself constantly, and that can be exhausting. One good thing though is you don't take your job home with you, because you can't. Once you are out of the labs your free time is your own.
I could write a book on why this job is not good for INFP's, but I do have to say this, it's more of a near miss job for me. I have an analytical mind, and all said and done, I do get to say, I help save people's lives. The routine aspects and repetition are much easier to bare when managment values patient care over policy, but the focus is policy and procedure, it can be miserable.