Undergraduate education in Laboratory Medicine.

The graduation of medicine is a title necessary but not sufficient to practice the medical profession. In Italy, as in other countries, Laboratory Medicine teaching is an educational area integrated with relevant pre-clinical disciplines, supporting the main medical processes of patient diagnosis, prognosis, treatment monitoring, evolution following-up, risk screening and hidden/latent condition finding. In the modern concept of core curriculum of medical students, some cardinal aspects of Laboratory Medicine should be included and precisely: test ordering, preanalytical and analytical issues, test interpreting. Such learning objectives would ultimately contribute, by a procedural/methodological approach, to the process of either correctly diagnosing or proper decision making, at the patient's benefit. The present article provides an overview of Laboratory Medicine teaching in the core curriculum of medical students in Italy, and highlights specific tasks of laboratory competencies and skills required to optimize the learning abilities of the students. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.