Why We Celebrate National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week
The first contact patients have with the laboratory is when they meet a person whose profession they probably can’t pronounce. That person, no doubt a trained phlebotomist, is the face of the laboratory.

The vial of blood drawn by the phlebotomist provides physicians – and ultimately their patients – with answers to questions that lead to treatments and often cures. That vial of blood is examined and tested by laboratory professionals to determine its type (A, B, AB, or O) and Rh factor (+ or -), the presence of infection, (i.e., hepatitis, HIV/AIDS), and countless other indicators. From those tests, laboratory professionals produce reports that alert physicians to diabetes, anemia, prostate disease, certain cancers, the impending possibility of cardiac disease or kidney failure, and a multitude of other conditions.

And that’s just from a blood sample. Equally important are results derived from testing other body fluids, including culturing them to determine how best to treat an invading bacterial organism. Tissue removed in surgery or collected during a biopsy procedure also comes into the lab and is prepared for examination by pathologists -- physicians with knowledge gained through years of study that prepares them to make the incredibly important decisions that in turn guide treatment.

We celebrate National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week each year to tell these important stories to our colleagues in hospitals and our friends in the community. We remind them that it’s the lab that provides the right type of blood to pull an automobile accident victim through an eight-hour surgery. We celebrate the future of pathology and lab medicine, when molecular testing will predict disease.

This year, wherever National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week is celebrated – from tiny hospitals in rural America to battlefield labs on foreign soil – we put up posters, have parties, get mayors and governors to sign proclamations and wear our T-shirts and buttons proclaiming our pride in our special profession. Perhaps most important, we make sure this year’s slogan, Quality Care from Quality Professionals, is spread far and wide.

But we really celebrate National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week because our work is vital to the health of America, and, increasingly, the world. Take time during this year’s National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week (April 22-28) to tell your story to as many willing listeners as you can find. And then, keep on celebrating National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week for the other 51 weeks of the year that you’re there – behind the scenes, saving lives, and living up to the notion that our health depends on our labs.