
Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions β written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Clinical pathology
Introduction
Clinical pathology is one of the two major divisions within the medical specialty of pathology. A clinical pathologist is a medical doctor responsible for the diagnosis of diseases based on the analysis of body fluids like blood, urine, etc. He/she works in close collaboration with medical technologists.
The American Board of Pathology certifies clinical pathologists, and recognizes the following secondary specialties of clinical pathology:
- Chemical pathology, also called clinical chemistry
- Haematology
- Blood banking – Transfusion medicine
- Medical microbiology
- Cytogenetics
- Molecular genetics pathology
In some country, in Western Europe or Africa this specialty can be exercized by non-physicians doctors, like Pharm.D or Ph.D after a variable number of year of residency.
For example, in France, Clinical Pathology called Medical Biology (“Biologie mΓ©dicale”) is both exercized by M.D and Pharm.D .
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
