Adequate supplies of tuberculosis laboratory reagents and consumables are necessary for tuberculosis diagnosis and monitoring of treatment response. This study assessed the distribution and stock levels of laboratory commodities used in tuberculosis control in health centers of Amhara region, Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 82 health centers, among 801, providing sputum micro...

INTRODUCTION Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is transmitted mainly through aerosolization of infected sputum which puts laboratory workers at risk in spite of the laboratory workers' risk of infection being at 3 to 9 times higher than the general public. Laboratory safety should therefore be prioritized and optimized to provide sufficient safety to laboratory worke...

Every physician would like to believe that his or her in-office lab executes tests properly and delivers results reliably. Unfortunately, a recent multiyear study identified a number of consistent errors in lab tests waived by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) program. The study, done by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control a...

BACKGROUND The microscopic examination of urine sediment is one of the most commonly performed microscope-based laboratory tests, but despite its widespread use, there has been no detailed study of the competency of medical technologists in performing this test. One reason for this is the lack of an effective competency assessment tool that can be applied uniformly across an institution. METH...

After an inpatient phlebotomy-laboratory test request audit for 2 general inpatient wards identified 5 tests commonly ordered on a recurring basis, a multidisciplinary committee developed a proposal to minimize unnecessary phlebotomies and laboratory tests by reconfiguring the electronic order function to limit phlebotomy-laboratory test requests to occur singly or to recur within one 24-hour w...

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is growing in popularity, and with this growth comes an increased chance of errors. Risk management is a way to reduce errors. Originally developed for the manufacturing industry, risk management principles have application for improving the quality of test results in the clinical laboratory. The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), EP23-A Laboratory ...

Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., is James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. He has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1976. Dr. Lefkowitz received a Bachelor's degree from Columbia College and an M.D. degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After serving an internship and one ye...

This study aimed to assess the knowledge of and attitudes to, medical ethics among doctors in the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Imphal, Manipur. It also looked at the association between levels of knowledge and selected variables. A self-administered structured questionnaire was distributed to all doctors working in RIMS, Imphal between September and October 2007. 315 of 440 (7...

OBJECTIVE When a person is hospitalized, he or she enters an environment in which time is structured very differently than it is in everyday life. Research with healthy young subjects in sleep laboratories has indicated that disruption in activity-rest cycles significantly affects mood, physical skills, and cognitive performance. Older persons whose daily routines are upset when they become pat...

The history of research on photosynthetic reaction centers is outlined, starting with the implication of their existence through the discovery of the photosynthetic unit, as reported by R. Emerson and W. Arnold in 1932, and culminating in the crystallization and X-ray analysis of the anoxygenic bacterial reaction centers, reported by J. Deisenhofer, H. Michel, and coworkers, over the period 198...