Professional quality assurance in laboratory medicine: what about the competency of laboratory directors?

摘要

The comments of clinical physicians regarding patients to whom they attend are typically written in the medical record and, therefore, are visible to many colleagues. Clinicians making an incorrect diagnostic or therapeutic recommendation or a procedural error are often promptly identified and counseled. They sometimes become defendants in malpractice cases as a result of their actions. Such comments also apply to the largely diagnostic specialties of anatomic pathology and radiology. Specialists in those fields provide written reports that are reviewed by many other physicians, and, if erroneous diagnostic conclusions lead to an adverse outcome for the patient, the case is again typically brought to attention and reviewed to assess the clinical competence of the pathologist or radiologist.