Department of Laboratory Medicine:    

Dr. Sudip K Datta

(Additional Professor& Head)

            The Department of Laboratory Medicine was created as a new department in 1988 with an aim to centralize patients’ investigations conducted at various places in All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi. Simultaneous with creation of single-spot laboratory facilities, it was also aimed to improve the area of investigative medicine with advancement of technologies used and expansion of test profiles to meet patients’ requirement.

Recruitment of faculty from various diagnostic specialties in early 90s was a step in the direction for development of an integrated, holistic approach towards diagnostics. Like any other department at AIIMS, the faculty tried to develop all essential activities including patient-care services, teaching and training of residents and basic and translational research related to diagnostics. With time, this department started a unique postgraduate teaching program with three-year residency leading to award of MD (Laboratory Medicine). The department also successfully runs a PhD program in Laboratory Medicine. The research endeavors have also brought intra and extra mural research-grants from various national and international bodies.

The department has state-of-the-art SMART Lab which is an end-to-end, integrated laboratory with total lab automation for clinical biochemistry, hematology, coagulation and serology testing providing high quality results with minimum Turn Around Time. Besides, it houses a fully automated Dry Clinical Chemistry platform, and fully automated hematology cell counters with automated slide maker and Stainer.

At present the patient care services are offered from two premises: Main Department (main hospital building, adjacent to Old RAK OPD block) and SMART Lab (new RAK OPD block).The department caters to the Main Hospital (IPD and Emergency), CN Centre, OPD block, Surgical block, Maternal & Child Health block and other centres. The department run 24x7 services for clinical chemistry, hematology, clinical pathology and clinical microbiology services from both the premises. The department manages two centralized blood collection centres in the Old and New RAK OPDs with a footfall of more than 1000 patients everyday. The OPD collection timings are from 8AM to 6:30PM.

This department has about 180 staff members that include faculty, senior residents, junior residents (academic), junior residents (non-academic), scientists and PhD scholars. On an average, the department of Laboratory Medicine conducts about 1lakh tests on a daily basis with utmost care on pre-analytical and analytical procedures and constant monitoring of quality through internal and external quality control programs. The reports are available online through appropriate access control.

Faculty/Scientists and resident doctors remain engaged in UG/PG teaching, tutorials, case discussions, Journal clubs, inter disciplinary discussion and research in various areas related to investigative medicine. This department also arranges laboratory training to postgraduate students from Department of Pathology, Department of Biochemistry and Department of Transfusion Medicine at AIIMS. It is also involved in teaching of B.Sc. (Nursing) students and training to PG/PhD scholars coming from various other institutions/universities. The faculty and researchers also conduct international and national workshops, CME and conferences on various topics of current importance periodically.

Welcome to the future of Diagnostics…..!!!