The Department of Laboratory Medicine is devoted to the study of the chemical and cellular constituents of blood and other body fluids for the diagnosis and management of illness and for the investigation of the mechanisms and pathogenesis of disease. The Department provides clinical laboratory testing for Yale-New Haven Medical Center. It also serves as a regional reference laboratory for New England, and as a national reference laboratory for various advanced diagnostic assays. Approximately four million tests are performed each year.
Teaching is a major emphasis.
Clinical Pathology residency training is provided for residents in straight Laboratory Medicine and as part of an integrated anatomic and clinical pathology residency training program in cooperation with the Department of Pathology. The programs are recognized as among the best in the country, and their graduates are highly successful in both academic and clinical practice. Excellent subspecialty fellowship training in Transfusion Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Hematopathology is also provided. The Department teaches two major required courses in the Medical School, Medical Microbiology and Introduction to Laboratory Medicine, as well as a fourth year elective in Laboratory Medicine. In the ten years since its inception, three Laboratory Medicine faculty have won the Bohmfalk Award, an honor bestowed annually by the medical student body to the most outstanding teacher.