ABSTRACT
A clinical toxicology laboratory routinely analyzes body ¯uids or other samples on several hundreds of patients at the request of physicians in the emergency room. In addition, several hundreds of samples sent from physicians from other departments as well as from surrounding hospitals are analyzed. ese results are reported back to the physicians by the technologist aªer review by the supervisor. e results are then put in the computer and become accessible to the concerned clinical sta and physicians. e toxicologist again veriˆes and signs them out. If necessary, the residents rotating in the toxicology laboratory visit the patients’ ¯oors, talk to the patient or the family, and submit a report back to the laboratory, which is stored and becomes available to be retrieved. In a busy hospital or medical center, the hard copies of patients’ results are stored for up to 10 years to be retrieved if and when necessary. Each hospital has its own way of storing these hard copies and in some medical centers, the records are sent to organizations like Business Medical Records for storage. Patients’ samples are stored in walkin refrigerators or freezers for up to three months. Frozen tissue samples as well as para°n blocks are also stored. e stored patients’ samples are shared or given to a coroner or medical examiner. If the samples are split, then the split samples are stored for up to 10 years as these cases may go to trial. Similarly, samples received from outside institutions for analysis are
also stored. Sometimes the patients’ samples are also sent to another laboratory to conˆrm and verify the results.
