CLINICAL LAB SCIENEC

CHAPTER 2: LABORATORY PERSONNEL CREDENTIALING AND FACILITY ACCREDITATION 29
Hospital Administrator
(CEO)
Anatomic Pathology
Laboratory Director
Clinical Pathology
Histology
Cytology
Autopsy
Clinical Consultant
Technical Supervisor
Assistant
Technical Supervisor
Hematology
Immunology
Microbiology
Chemistry
Immunohematology
Support Services
FIGURE 2-1 Organizational chart of a typical hospital laboratory.
Source: Delmar/Cengage Learning.
the body, as well as some of the more routine work such as evaluation of bone
marrow. But an extremely important role of the pathologist is to explain clinical
test results and their meanings to patients, family, and other physicians. A
pathologist may function as either an anatomic pathologist or a clinical pathologist,
or as both in smaller laboratories. A Ph.D. scientist may also serve as the
laboratory director in most states, but pathologists must also direct the histopathological
and cytological departments of the anatomic laboratory, as well as
perform tissue and cell examinations.
Anatomic pathologists are responsible for the examination of all surgical
specimens, including those from postmortem examinations. Quick tissue examinations
from frozen sections while a patient is still in surgery is often performed
by the anatomic pathologist and gives the surgeon an answer as to the probability
of a tissue being malignant (cancerous), allowing more extensive surgery
while the patient is still under anesthesia. The anatomic pathologist often works
closely with cytotechnologists or histotechnologists in the preparation of and
staining of cell specimens such as those from Pap smears and in finely slicing and
staining tissue sections for examination to look for cellular inclusions or to assist
in the diagnosis of cancer. Early diagnosis of cancer is made possible by the quick
evaluation of these specimens, which often saves lives with early detection.
Some pathologists are trained in and practice a specialty called clinical pathology,
which is also known as laboratory medicine. This is the medical specialist
who coordinates the diagnosing of diseases by examinations and analyses of all
Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.