Pathology lab answers veterinarians’ questions

Tubes of blood, glass slides coated with cells from a dog’s lung, a sample of a cow’s stomach fluid – all day the specimens arrive.

These specimens will help veterinarians answer a variety of life-saving questions. Is this donor’s blood a match for the cat receiving a kidney transplant? Must this foal avoid nursing to prevent ingesting dangerous antibodies from the mare?

The Clinical Pathology Laboratory at the School of Veterinary Medicine is poised to provide the answers. In fact, last year the lab generated results for more than 33,000 test submissions from both internal and referring veterinarians.

Lab technicians did this with the help of equipment that can measure the amount of chemical constituents in bodily fluids, analyze cellular components of blood and identify microorganisms.

But the lab staff says these instruments, as well as others, provide only part of the answers.

“The technologists do much more than push buttons,” says Pete MacWilliams, chief of staff for diagnostic services. He notes that they need species-specific training and knowledge to provide subjective evaluations of cells, bacteria and parasite eggs.

Whereas the skills and equipment are the same as those used in laboratories that analyze humans, the lab’s supervisor Faye Hartmann says veterinary clinical pathology is more complicated. “There are many more variables – each species has unique features and normal values,” she explains.

Offering full-service chemistry, cytology, hematology, immunology, microbiology, parasitology and urinalysis, the laboratory employs seven medical technologists and medical laboratory technicians. Two faculty clinical pathologists, a clinical instructor and a resident complete the team.