Access to fair and equal healthcare is essential for every community, county, and country. While it’s easy to say, making it happen is much harder. One of the biggest challenges is getting the right diagnosis at the right time – and avoiding missed, wrong, or delayed diagnoses.
I believe diagnostic care is the foundation of modern medicine. When something goes wrong in this area, it can lead to serious consequences and make it harder for patients to get the care they need.
Take former President George Washington, for example. What actually caused his death? Was it a missed or incorrect diagnosis? He may have had conditions like bacterial epiglottitis, diphtheria, or pneumonia – we don’t know for sure. At the time, doctors used bloodletting as a treatment. Sadly, they removed about 40 percent of his blood, which likely led to his death. Back then, antibiotics like penicillin hadn’t been discovered yet, but perhaps if the doctors had known the real cause of his illness, they wouldn’t have turned to such a harmful treatment.
This week, April 21–27, 2025, we celebrate Medical Laboratory Professionals Week – a time to thank all the dedicated people who work behind the scenes in medical labs. Because of your work, we can now accurately test and diagnose conditions like strep throat, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and many others. You help doctors choose the right antibiotics and use them wisely. In fact, your role in antibiotic stewardship helps fight antibiotic overuse and resistance.
You also play a huge part in managing chronic diseases. Since the Framingham Heart Study in 1948, lab testing has helped reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes through better screening. And in cancer care, we’ve gone from using basic tumor markers to advanced tests like liquid biopsies to track even tiny amounts of cancer.
As we move into the age of artificial intelligence (AI), your work is more important than ever. AI can help analyze lab results, but it’s your work that creates the data. Without you, AI has nothing to work with.
So here’s a final message:
You rock – and so does laboratory medicine!
You are the foundation of modern healthcare, and your impact is felt every day.
Newsletters
Receive the latest pathology news, personalities, education, and career development – weekly to your inbox.
