Clinical Chemistry Education This is to draw the attention of chemists and departments of chemistry to the discipline of clinical chemistry as deserving attention in undergraduate and post-graduate education and in its career possibilities for chemistry graduates. Clinical chemistry is concerned with the determination of body constituents in health and disease for purposes of health maintenance, diagnosis, and therapy. I t currently is the most rapidly expanding of the medical laboratory disciplines and its size may be judged from the International Federation of Clinical Chemists which has 33 member countries representing many thousands of scientists engaged in the practice of clinical chemistry. In contrast to other divisions of chemistry its place of practice is usually in a medical rather than a chemical laboratory environment With the exception of larger hospitals and some commercial laboratories in more advanced centers of population it is carried out in concert with the usual medical fields of hematology, microbiology, and pathology. In the last two decades, however, the introduction of advanced computerized automated equipment and sophisticated methodology using almost every concept and device of general, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry has unleashed the present and potential contribution to the health of this hranch of chemical science. Snectroohotometrv. .. from the ultraviolet through the infrared is used for the kinetic analysis of enzyme function pinpointing the sp;cific tissue origin of pathology and thehetermination of the chemical composition reflecting the metabolic and disease origins of renal calculi. It has a routine analytical function for thousands of analyses per day in the larger centers. Atomic absorption provides essential information on the content of trace elements in biologic samples. Flame emission spectrometry allows the rapid analysis of mono and divalent cations required to diagnose disease and to monitor therapy. Coulometric, manometric, electrophoretic, chromatographic procedures are commonplace. The explosive requirements of high volume of patient samples throughout along with high precision and good accuracy have brought the developments of continuous flow and of discrete centrifugal analysis to meet the unique reauirements of the field. The aoolication of aualitv . . control svstems o r i.~ n a l.l vestablished in industw are now commonplace m rlmrrnl chemical lahornrorirs. Servicing thi, markrr has become a mapr, and the most rapid.y growing, ctrmmercial effurf of the rhemic.il. initrumrntll, and drug industries.Thcse changes have taken place because rlmical chemical analysis provides unique and rust having insights into pathophyrmlupy with cvnsequent speohrity of therapy that bids fair to alter the fare of health maintenance. I t is clear that the clinical chemist needs a lergely chemical training with a background of biochemistry and physiolo~
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We sumest that ehemistrv deoartments might orofitablv consider. in their teaching nromams, the inclusion of some d=rnentr ?hemost obvious thin;to do would be t o introduce a few &d clhical chemistrv. exoeriments . ~ . . ~o?hnrnl .~ ~ . ~ ~ rhemistrv. ~. . in regularcourwson mstrumenta,iun ur physical chemistry. Students may indeed find's~rchexperimentrmore interesting than cunvrntionnl one5 and prolit by the cxpenence. Such experiments would enrich the courses and point studenta towards graduate employment avenues not commonly obvious t o them. The IUPAC Commission on Clinical Chemistry Education and the IUPAC Committee on Teaching of Chemistry are making efforts on a core curriculum for clinical chemistry. In the meantime, information on the survey of clinical chemistry education and curriculum may be obtained from one of us (I).H. Curnow). ~~~~~
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(.'hairman, Committee on Teaching of Chemistry. International Union of I'urr & Applied Chemistry.
' Chnwman, Commission on Clinrral Chemiutrv Kducation, International llnion 01 Pure X. Applied Chemistry. During 1976 at: Division of Clinical Chamrstry, Clinical Research Cenrrp, Nonhwirk Park Hwpital. Warford Kond. Harrow. Middlmex HA1 3UJ, England.
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur 208016, India I k p a r t m e n t of Clinical Riochemiatry I'crth Medical Centre Shenton I'ark, Western Auslralia 6008
Volum 53, Number 12, December 1976 / 779
