Recognizing the Laboratory Physicians

Reports from the Laboratory of the College of Physicians, Edinburgh

Caring for the forensic population: recognizing the educational needs of emergency department nurses and physicians.

The Emergency Department (ED) is a point of contact for victims of violence after an act of criminal activity has occurred. Hence, ED clinicians are in a key position to have a significant impact on both the medical and legal outcomes of the forensic patient population. The purpose of this study was to describe and compare forensic knowledge, practice, and experiences of ED nurses and physician...

Are physicians' office laboratory results of comparable quality to those produced in other laboratory settings?

CONTEXT In 1995, California adopted a bill that brought laboratory laws in line with the 1988 Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments' standards for clinical laboratories and mandated a study comparing results in physicians' office laboratories (POLs) with other settings. OBJECTIVE To determine whether persons conducting tests in POLs produce accurate and reliable test results comparable t...

Altering a computerized laboratory test order form rationalizes ordering of laboratory tests in primary care physicians

BACKGROUND To reduce physicians' inappropriate laboratory requests for their patients, administrators have used methods such as modifying a laboratory request order form with an agreed requesting protocol for the most common diagnoses in primary health care. OBJECTIVE To study the effects of removing the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and aspartate transaminase (AST) which are considere...

Recognizing and Preventing Overexposure to Methylmercury from Fish and Seafood Consumption: Information for Physicians

Fish is a valuable source of nutrition, and many people would benefit from eating fish regularly. But some people eat a lot of fish, every day or several meals per week, and thus can run a significant risk of overexposure to methylmercury. Current advice regarding methylmercury from fish consumption is targeted to protect the developing brain and nervous system but adverse health effects are in...