September is National Cholesterol Education Month. Learn more about cholesterol and other lipids, and when testing may be appropriate.
Learn MoreTo learn more about laboratory medicine in general and gain a greater understanding of how laboratory testing can impact your health care, read the following in-depth articles. These patient resources are intended to help you navigate the testing process, provide context for the lab tests you may need or have already completed, and give you a better understanding of your test results.
Learn about point-of-care testing (POCT), which encompasses any laboratory tests that are performed at or near a patient and at the site where care or treatment is provided. Point-of-care test results are typically available relatively quickly so that they can be acted upon without delay.
Learn about transfusion medicine and blood banking. Transfusion medicine is the branch of medicine that is concerned with the process of collecting (donation), testing, processing, storing, and transfusing blood and its components. It is a cornerstone of emergency and surgical medicine. Blood banks are sections of clinical laboratories that process, test, and distribute blood and its components.
Anatomic pathology is the branch of medicine that studies the effect of disease on the structure of body organs to identify abnormalities that can help to diagnose disease and manage treatment. Learn about biopsies, histopathology, cytology, fine needle aspirations and more.
Sometimes, undergoing an unfamiliar medical procedure can turn out to be a tense, upsetting, or even frightening experience. If undergoing medical tests makes you or someone you care for anxious, embarrassed, or fearful, read this article for some general tips on how to make the sample collection experience less stressful.
Many of the decisions you and your healthcare provider make about your health status are based on laboratory data. Learn why you and your provider can trust the results coming from the laboratory and why that trust is well-placed.
Today's technologies allow testing on an impressively wide variety of samples collected from the human body. Learn about these samples and how they are collected to ensure accurate and reliable testing.
This form enables patients to ask specific questions about lab tests. Your questions will be answered by a laboratory scientist as part of a voluntary service provided by one of our partners, American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science. Please allow 2-3 business days for an email response from one of the volunteers on the Consumer Information Response Team.
Send Us Your Question
