August 6, 2010
School of Medicine, Kochi
 

The Department of Biochemistry at the Amrita School of Medicine organized a one-day CME on recent advances in laboratory management on July 31, 2010.
 

“The program focused on the most recent developments in the field of laboratory management,” informed Dr. K.N. Subhakumari, Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry.
 

Speakers from Amrita and other colleges spoke on several topics including recent cardiac markers, immunofluorescence, and laboratory accreditation.
 

Dr. Sreekumari S., Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry at Sree Gokulam Medical College, Trivandrum spoke on cardiac markers.
 

“Cardiac markers help to diagnose myocardial infarction within a short time after the onset of pain,” she stated. She discussed the role played by a variety of cardiac markers in the early detection, diagnosis, risk stratification and treatment of patients.
 

The importance of immunofluorescence tests in the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases was discussed in detail by Dr. Jagath Lal Chandrasekharan, Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry in Amrita.
 

“Autoimmune diseases attack the human body when the body’s lymphocytes fail to recognize its own cells and tissues,” he shared.
 

“Sjogren’s syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, polymyositis, dermato myositis, mixed connective tissue disorders, systemic sclerosis, CREST, autoimmune hepatitis, and primary biliary cirrhosis are some of the autoimmune diseases that we investigate at Amrita,” he informed the audience.
 

Dr. Kannan Vaidyanathan, Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Technical Manager of Amrita Laboratory Services presented general guidelines and procedures for medical laboratory accreditation.
 

“Accreditation helps in resource optimization and quality of service,” he stated. “Implementing quality management detects errors that may occur and prevents them from recurring.”
 

The Amrita School of Medicine, a highly-ranked medical college in India, has high-end medical technology and clinical laboratory services accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
 

Clinical laboratory services at Amrita include clinical pathology, clinical biochemistry, hematology and immunohematology, microbiology and serology, histopathology, cytopathology, cytogenetics, nuclear medicine etc.