Quality Assurance for Office Laboratories

Abstract

To the Editor.— I read with interest the review by Belsey et al 1 in the Feb 14 issue ofThe Journal, which mentions under Technical Implications that the new office laboratory will require practitioners to adopt the role of laboratory director, with all its dreary quality control trappings. I am an emergency room (ER) physician and at the time was looking for documentation of the usefulness of clue cells in the diagnosis of Gardnerella vaginitis (or anaerobic vaginosis) to present to the hospital laboratory director, since we have not been allowed a microscope in the ER (because of quality control considerations, among others). I was hoping to have the presence of clue cells included in each vaginal wet preparation report. An hour's worth of telephone calls and a trip to the medical school library revealed the following paradoxical information. Of 11 hospital laboratories telephoned in the area, all with