Laboratory medicine

A medical laboratory or clinical laboratory is a laboratory where tests are usually done on clinical specimens in order to obtain information about the health of a patient as pertaining to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Clinical laboratories are thus focused on applied science mainly on a production-like basis, as opposed to research laboratories that focus on basic science on an academic basis.

Laboratory medicine is generally divided into two sections, each of which being subdivided into multiple units. These two sections are

Distribution of clinical laboratories in health institutions varies greatly from one place to another. For instance, for microbiology, some health facilities have a single laboratory for microbiology, while others have a separate lab for each unit, with nothing called a "microbiology" lab.

The following is a detailed breakdown of the responsibilities of each unit:

The staff of clinical laboratories may include:

In many countries, there are two main types of labs that process the majority of medical specimens. Hospital laboratories are attached to a hospital, and perform tests on patients. Private (or community) laboratories receive samples from general practitioners, insurance companies, clinical research sites and other health clinics for analysis. For extremely specialised tests, samples may go to a research laboratory. A lot of samples are sent between different labs for uncommon tests. It is more cost effective if a particular laboratory specializes in a rare test, receiving specimens (and money) from other labs, while sending away tests it cannot do.

In many countries there are mainly three types of Medical Laboratories as per the types of investigations carried out. 1. Clinical Pathology: Haematology, Histopathology, Cytology, Routine Pathology2. Clinical Microbiology: Bacteriology, Mycobacteriology, Virology, Mycology, Parasitology, Immunology, Serology.3. Clinical Biochemistry: Biochemical analysis, Hormonal assays etc.Blood Banks:- Blood bank is a separate body. Its laboratory need Microbiological analysis for infectious diseases that may be found in blood. Pathology to observe Blood grouping, Haematology & cross matching reactions. It also involves PRO department for the communication & contact for blood donations etc.. Molecular diagnostic lab or cytogenetics and molecular biology lab is the latest addition to the three types of medical laboratories listed above in many countries.

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