Handbook

This course outlines the technologies, tests and operation of a variety of clinical laboratory testing systems (biochemistry, haematology and immunology) and how they apply to the diagnosis of diseases in a particular organ system. You will also be exposed to the underlying principles involved in the measurement of certain physiological parameters from some of the complex organ systems including the urinary, pulmonary, cardiac and musculoskeletal systems. An important component of the course is to enable you to think about how diagnostics can be generated to help the clinician diagnose disease by having an understanding of what is being measured and how to design, build and test a diagnostic based on the fundamental science. Two activities in this course provide you with this learning opportunity. One is an independent lab report that is a demonstration of how enzymes work and by measuring their activity, you can obtain an indication of health or disease and then how you can use enzymes to generate reliable diagnostics; for example, diagnosing diabetes by measuring glucose in urine. The second activity is a group literature review on the different technologies used to measure glucose in body fluids for diabetes which includes a written review and a group video presentation.