Laposata M
Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston 02114, USA.
Am J Clin Pathol. 1996 Nov;106(5):571-3. doi: 10.1093/ajcp/106.5.571.
Mr. Paul Mango, Chief Operating Officer of a hospital-based clinical laboratory network in Pittsburgh, recently performed a survey of patients presenting for phlebotomy. The survey included the question, "What does a pathologist do?" The results were that 50% of the patients had no idea what a pathologist did, and 30% of the patients stated that pathologists examined dead bodies. It is not surprising that there is a limited understanding by patients of the activities of pathologists because patients do not usually see pathologists. However, beyond autopsy and surgical pathology, the activities of pathologists are also not well known to nonpathologist physicians and hospital administrators. A poor understanding of activities in clinical pathology have placed these clinical responsibilities of the pathologist under particular scrutiny for cost reduction. The quantitation of output from anatomic pathology, in number of slides reviewed or number of autopsies performed, is objective and easily understood. As noted in the list of clinical pathology activities that follows, the responsibilities within the clinical laboratory are highly diverse and, if the pathologist handles them successfully, highly contributory to patient care. Thus, it is timely that a compilation of activities in clinical pathology be issued for review by the pathologist community. I would hope that this list will serve as a starting point for a universally accepted group of activities that describes clinical pathology today and that it will be useful for pathologists to make their significant contributions in the clinical laboratory apparent to administrators, fellow physicians, and patients. The clinical laboratory responsibilities should also be valuable to directors of residency training programs to focus training in clinical pathology toward the development of currently desirable expertise.
匹兹堡一家医院临床检验网络的首席运营官保罗·曼戈先生最近对前来接受静脉穿刺采血的患者进行了一项调查。该调查包含一个问题：“病理学家的工作是什么？”结果显示，50%的患者完全不知道病理学家是做什么的，30%的患者表示病理学家是检查尸体的。患者对病理学家的工作了解有限并不奇怪，因为患者通常见不到病理学家。然而，除了尸检和外科病理学之外，非病理科医生和医院管理人员对病理学家的工作也了解甚少。对临床病理学工作的了解不足使得病理学家的这些临床职责在成本削减方面受到了特别审查。解剖病理学的产出量化，如审查的玻片数量或进行的尸检数量，是客观且易于理解的。正如以下临床病理学活动列表中所指出的，临床实验室内部的职责高度多样，如果病理学家能够成功处理这些职责，将对患者护理有很大贡献。因此，及时发布一份临床病理学活动汇编供病理学界审查是很有必要的。我希望这份列表能够成为一组被普遍接受的活动的起点，这些活动描述了当今的临床病理学，并且对病理学家来说，能让他们在临床实验室中的重要贡献向管理人员、同行医生和患者展现出来。临床实验室职责对于住院医师培训项目的主任们也应该有价值，有助于他们将临床病理学培训聚焦于培养当前所需的专业技能。
