Teaching laboratory medicine. The clinical laboratory experience.

A medical student's introduction to the clinical laboratory often sets the tone for the relationship that will exist between him or her and the laboratory throughout medical practice. As part of the sophomore pathology and laboratory medicine course at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, groups of seven or eight medical students spend one hour in each of ten different areas of the clinical laboratory. This experience acquaints the students with laboratory personnel, organization, and procedure, and emphasizes the importance of communication between clinicians and the laboratory staff. Consequently, our students have greater awareness of the capabilities and limitations of laboratory testing. This has, in turn, resulted in more efficient use of laboratory resources by clinicians and fewer complaints about laboratory service. The relatively small size of the classes in our institution enables us to schedule these sessions effectively. However, schools with larger classes could use a similar system since many of these schools have access to laboratories at more than one hospital.