Educational and Practice Needs of Laboratory Profession - Findings From an IFCC Survey.

Abstract

Introduction: Laboratory medicine is an evolving clinical specialty that is driven by technological advancements, availability of new evidence and new clinical workflows to cater to changing demographic and socioeconomic landscape. This report summarises the educational and practice needs based on the responses provided to a survey.

Method: The IFCC TF-GEL conducts regular educational webinars. At the end of the webinar, a participant survey is administered anonymously, which included an open-ended question for suggesting topics and areas in laboratory medicine for which future webinars can be organised for. This question was designed to take pulse of the educational and practice needs of the laboratory practitioners. All survey responses for this question between February 13 and September 23, 2024 were extracted from the online survey platform and objectively summarised using ChatGPT 4.o.

Results: Overall, 3902 comments were received from 12 webinars' global survey participants in 2024. Comments were qualitatively summarised into broad headings in laboratory medicine, including quality management and compliance, clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine, emerging trends and technologies, specialized testing and techniques, healthcare management and leadership, case studies and practical applications, public health and emerging health topics, innovation and future directions.

Discussion: Many of the topics highlighted by the laboratory practitioners have matching IFCC functional units. They can be engaged to developed freely accessible educational and practice guidelines resources to maintain the standards of profession of the laboratory practitioner globally. Additionally, the topics summarised here can also be used to develop local resource and curriculum.