Laboratory medicine in the 2000s: programmed death or rebirth?
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Gian Cesare Guidi
Abstract
Changes have occurred in the organization, complexity and role of medical laboratories in healthcare, requiring a great increase in global productivity and diagnostic efficiency by enrolled professionals to withstand new challenges. Such a radical evolution, which should be very attractive for new generations of professionals, is counterbalanced by an increasing shortage of laboratory vocations worldwide, particularly in community hospital and large reference laboratories, which may lead to a serious crisis in the field of laboratory medicine in the very near future. Some reasons can be highlighted, including the decreased interaction between clinicians and laboratory professionals, centralized testing, and the development of innovative, minimally invasive techniques that can easily be handled without direct control or supervision by laboratory staff. The prospect of a professional decline in laboratory medicine can be offset by increased awareness of the radical changes occurring within clinical laboratories and re-professionalization of laboratory scientists. This will require new resources to attract young professionals, and should include reaffirmation of the role of laboratory consultants and active participation in the development, implementation and monitoring of innovative diagnostic systems. The “patient” appears to be in a serious condition; it is in our hands to let him be reborn.
Clin Chem Lab Med 2006;44:913–7.
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©2006 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
Articles in the same Issue
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Articles in the same Issue
- Laboratory medicine in the 2000s: programmed death or rebirth?
- Polymorphisms of the inflammatory system and risk of ischemic cerebrovascular events
- Haptoglobin polymorphism in patients with preeclampsia
- Fifteen polymorphisms in endothelin-1, endothelin-2 and endothelin-receptor-A genotyped by four duplex assays and seven simple assays on a LightCycler using hybridization probes
- Optimization of an enzymatic method for the determination of lysosomal N-acetyl-β-D-hexosaminidase and β-glucuronidase in synovial fluid
- An improved laboratory protocol to assess subarachnoid haemorrhage in patients with negative cranial CT scan
- Association of aminothiols with the clinical outcome in hemodialysis patients: comparison of chromatography and immunoassay for homocysteine determination
- Poor prognosis indicated by nucleated red blood cells in peripheral blood is not associated with organ failure of the liver or kidney
- Detection of citrate overdose in critically ill patients on citrate-anticoagulated venovenous haemofiltration: use of ionised and total/ionised calcium
- Unchanged androgen-binding properties of sex hormone-binding globulin in male patients with liver cirrhosis
- Relationship between serum uric acid, creatinine, albumin and gestational diabetes mellitus
- Aminothiols in human brain tumors
- Measurement of carnitine in hemodialysis patients – adaptation of an enzymatic photometric method for an automatic analyzer
- A robust liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method for total plasma homocysteine determination in clinical practice
- Establishment of reference distributions and decision values for thyroid antibodies against thyroid peroxidase (TPOAb), thyroglobulin (TgAb) and the thyrotropin receptor (TRAb)
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- α-Tocopherol supplementation reduces the elevated 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine blood levels induced by training in basketball players
- Influence of the needle bore size used for collecting venous blood samples on routine clinical chemistry testing
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- Guidelines for setting up an External Quality Assessment Scheme for blood smear interpretation. Part II: survey preparation, statistical evaluation and reporting
- Free light chain testing in follow-up of multiple myeloma
- Blood reactive oxygen metabolites (ROMs) and total antioxidant status (TAS) in patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma after surgical treatment
- SIBioC 2006 38th National Congress of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Clinical Molecular Biology, Turin, Italy, September 19–22, 2006
- Third Santorini Biologie Prospective Conference 2006: From Human Genetic Variations to Prediction of Risks and Responses to Drugs and the Environment, Santorini Island, Greece, September 29 - October 2, 2006
