This year's National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week (NMLPW), was celebrated April 20-26. It is a time to honor the more than 280,000 medical laboratory professionals across the nation who perform and interpret laboratory tests that save lives and keep people healthy. Pathologists and laboratory technologists and technicians at South Texas Regional Medical Center (STRMC) are among the many unsung heroes of medical healthcare.

Using ever evolving technology and high-tech instrumentation, laboratory professionals help to prevent disease by detecting unknown health problems and by aiding in the diagnosis and treatment of existing conditions by giving accurate, timely test results.

STRMC celebrated Lab Week by hosting a cake and punch gathering at the STRMC Lobby for the entire hospital staff. Louis Reyes, Director of Laboratory, hand distributed individual gifts to his staff and praised them for their dedication to improving healthcare in the community.

"We are proud of the work we do," says Reyes. "We have to be painstakingly meticulous in performing our jobs to provide dependable answers to your family physicians."

Doctors rely heavily on lab tests to make diagnoses, thus laboratory professionals are critical components of the health care system. Results of laboratory tests often identify the presence of disease in its earliest stages, when the possibilities of a cure are greatest and when treatment is least costly.

Medical laboratory professionals represent a variety of specialties, including pathologists, medical technologists, clinical laboratory scientists, medical laboratory technicians, histotechnologists, histologic technicians, cytotechnologists, cytopathologists, phlebotomy technicians, clinical chemists, microbiologists, laboratory managers, and medical educators.

These professionals can be found in hospitals, doctors' offices, clinics, research facilities, blood banks, public health centers, the Armed Forces, universities, and industry. Within the laboratory, these highly educated and experienced medical laboratory professionals may work in chemistry, serology, hematology, cytology, microbiology, immunology, coagulation, histology, urinalysis, molecular biology, or the blood bank. We thank and congratulate the STRMC Laboratory Department!