Phlebotomy

Drawing blood — by vacuum tube, syringe or butterfly — confirming patient identity, collecting and labelling specimens, and getting them to the laboratory intact. ⚠⚠⚠ The shortest credential Florida awards in health care: of 772 phlebotomy credentials issued by 29 public institutions in 2023, EVERY SINGLE ONE was a certificate of under twelve weeks. ⚠ No Florida licence is required — the clinical laboratory licensing statute names phlebotomists in its EXCLUSION.

The degrees this program covers

⚠⚠⚠ UNDER TWELVE WEEKS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. IPEDS records 772 Florida phlebotomy credentials in the 2023 award year across 29 public institutions, and the award level on all 772 is Certificate (less than 12 weeks). No associate degree, no longer certificate, nothing. It is the shortest formal route into health care the state operates, and 24 of the 29 carriers are DISTRICT TECHNICAL COLLEGES. ⚠⚠ In the Florida course file the training is two blocks: HSC0003 Basic Healthcare Worker, 90 hours, the shared core of Florida health-science CTE and the most widely carried course in the state at 55 institutions; then MEA0520 Phlebotomist (OCP B, 75 hours, 20 institutions) or MEA0521 Phlebotomist, MA (OCP C, 75 hours, 22 institutions). ⚠ About 165 clock hours end to end. ⚠⚠ Note where those course numbers come from: phlebotomy is an OCCUPATIONAL COMPLETION POINT inside Florida's Medical Assisting programme, so the same 75 hours can either be a standalone certificate or the second rung of a longer programme. Ask which your institution is enrolling you in, because continuing to medical assistant afterwards is much easier if you started inside that programme. ⚠ And ask whether the programme prepares you for a NATIONAL certification exam. Florida requires none, but hospitals and reference laboratories screen on ASCP PBT, NHA CPT or AMT RPT, and a programme that does not end in an exam leaves you competing without the thing employers filter on.

Careers this program leads to

Each one sets out the courses along the way, the licence or certification at the end, and the sources behind it.

Phlebotomist

The shortest formal route into health care Florida operates. ⚠⚠⚠ Of 772 phlebotomy credentials awarded by 29 Florida public institutions in 2023, EVERY ONE was a certificate of under twelve weeks — about 165 clock hours, most of it at a district technical college. It pays $45,230, essentially the same as a medical assistant or a pharmacy technician on ten times the training. ⚠⚠ And Florida's clinical laboratory licensing statute names phlebotomists in its EXCLUSION, one rung below two occupations the same statute licenses.

Physician Assistant

Diagnosing, managing and prescribing across essentially every specialty — $135,880 median, 162,700 employed, 12,000 openings a year, growing much faster than average. ⚠⚠⚠ The barrier is not the transcript. PAEA puts the median matriculant at about 3,200 hours of direct patient contact — one to three years of clinical work BEFORE the programme starts — and Florida's six public programmes award 225 master's degrees a year between them. ⚠⚠ So the real question this page answers is: which job do you take first?

Programs similar to this one

Neighbouring fields that share much of the same coursework, and often the same employers. ⚠ Read these before you commit to a major — which doors a neighbouring degree keeps open is the part no catalog tells you, and it is far cheaper to change now than later.

Medical Laboratory Science 14 Florida schools

⚠⚠ The rung above, and the reason to think of phlebotomy as a beginning rather than a destination. The laboratory ladder runs phlebotomist ($45,230) to medical laboratory technician ($62,930) to medical laboratory scientist ($82,280) — but Florida teaches the technician at only 9 institutions and the scientist at 5, against 29 for phlebotomy. ⚠ The higher rungs pay far better and are far harder to get into, and both are STATE LICENSED where phlebotomy is not.

Medical Assisting 38 Florida schools

⚠⚠⚠ Not a neighbour — the SAME PROGRAMME. Phlebotomy is occupational completion point B and C of Florida's Medical Assisting framework, and MEA0520 and MEA0521 are the courses. So a phlebotomy certificate is literally a partial medical assisting credential, and continuing costs only the remaining OCPs (EKG aide at 75 hours, then medical assistant at 960). ⚠ Ask your institution whether it will count what you have already done.

Nursing 78 Florida schools

⚠ Not a route — separate credential, clock hours do not transfer into a credit degree. Named because phlebotomy is the cheapest and fastest way to find out whether you can work with patients, needles and blood before committing two years to nursing. ⚠⚠ Under twelve weeks to answer that question is worth something, and the job pays while you decide.

Physician Assistant Studies 6 Florida schools

⚠⚠⚠ The fastest route to patient contact hours in Florida: every one of the 772 phlebotomy credentials awarded in 2023 was a certificate of UNDER TWELVE WEEKS, at 29 public institutions. ⚠ Whether it counts as direct patient care varies by programme — ask before enrolling — but as a way to be employed in a hospital within three months while taking prerequisites, nothing else comes close.

Florida public institutions offering this program

29 institutions awarded a credential in this field in 2023, at these levels: Certificate (<12 weeks), Certificate (12 weeks-1 year). A school appears here if it awards anything in the field, however limited its offering — a technical college teaching only practical nursing has a nursing program. Listed alphabetically, not ranked.

Daytona State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Eastern Florida State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Emerald Coast Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks) · Certificate (12 weeks-1 year)

Erwin Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Flagler Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Florida Gateway College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Florida Panhandle Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Fred K Marchman Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Indian River State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Lake Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Lindsey Hopkins Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Lively Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks) · Certificate (12 weeks-1 year)

Lorenzo Walker Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Manatee Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Marion Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks) · Certificate (12 weeks-1 year)

Miami Dade College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Orange Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Osceola Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Pasco-Hernando State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Pensacola State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Pinellas Technical College-Clearwater

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Riveroak Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks) · Certificate (12 weeks-1 year)

Robert Morgan Educational Center and Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Santa Fe College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Sheridan Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

South Dade Technical College-South Dade Skills Center Campus

Certificate (<12 weeks)

South Florida State College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Traviss Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Treasure Coast Technical College

Certificate (<12 weeks)

Source: federal IPEDS completions data for 2023, first majors only — the most recent year published. ⚠ It records what was awarded, which is strong evidence of what is offered, but a program launched since 2023 will not appear here. Check the institution’s own catalog before applying.

Updated 22 September 2026. ⚠ Program pages describe a field of study, not one school’s degree — always read the catalog of the institution you are applying to.