[Current state and problems of laboratory medicine education in the Department of Medicine at Hirosaki University School of Medicine: why and who best to educate?].

At Hirosaki University, there has been insufficient discussion regarding laboratory medicine education, why medical students learn about laboratory tests, why clinical laboratory physicians teach, and to what degree these contribute to medical education. In order to answer these questions, it is essential to develop the philosophy of laboratory medicine. Our teaching philosophy is to foster physicians who can identify and judge "uncertainties" in laboratory tests and then act to minimize them. In order to embrace this philosophy, educators, i.e., clinical laboratory physicians, themselves, must be innovators and always strive to propose new concepts and knowledge to overcome uncertainties in laboratory tests. We hope that active discussion among many educators involved in laboratory medicine will lead to a consensus regarding the above mentioned questions, thus further stabilizing and expanding laboratory medicine at medical universities (schools of medicine), including our university. We hope that the discussion held at the present symposium will serve as a catalyst.