(AKA: I’m a Clinician and I’m Still Googling Some Labs!)
During a recent patient visit, a healthy individual in their mid-30s — with a normal BMI, an active lifestyle, and taking seven different over-the-counter supplements — request not just yearly fasting labs, but “all hormone levels and all of the vitamins and minerals you can test for,” just to “see if they were healthy.” Another patient the same week wanted her cortisol levels checked. A third asked why magnesium testing isn’t routine. All of this happened in the same week I was managing a patient with thalassemia and another with complex metabolic syndrome, renal disease, and a long list of abnormal labs.
If I’m being honest: I still feel unprepared.
I’m constantly working to balance the growing volume of wellness advice on social media — which fuels patient requests for unnecessary or non-indicated lab testing — against the very real challenge of interpreting complex and evolving lab results myself. And I know I’m not alone.
In our 2024 survey of APP learning needs, a striking 81.3% of respondents said they would prioritize complex lab interpretation in their ideal conference lineup. In open-ended responses, lab ordering and interpretation emerged as the #1 most common clinical struggle.
This echoes what little literature we do have. In a 2014 U.S. study, nearly 15% of primary care physicians reported a lack of confidence in ordering or interpreting labs.¹ A 2017 study in the UK found that 78% of general practitioners spent more than 30 minutes daily on lab work — yet only 53% felt confident managing abnormal results.² In South Africa, 17% of lab-related encounters were considered challenging due to issues like reporting delays, formatting, and limited access to trending results.³
Now, without physical textbooks and with the rise of Google, apps, and AI-generated summaries — where should clinicians turn for accurate, accessible, real-time guidance?
I’d like to offer NPACE as part of the solution.
In response to your feedback, NPACE is hosting its first-ever virtual conference focused entirely on lab testing this August. You asked — and we listened.
Topics include:
This 2-day virtual event includes 90 days of on-demand access, so you can return to the content again and again. And if you’re joining us in September in Phoenix, you’ll get Lab Fest included for free with any conference track registration!
Find out more and join us here.
Let’s face it: lab interpretation is hard. Patient requests are rising. Social media is confusing. But you’re not alone — and you don’t have to figure it all out by yourself.
Join us and keep sharpening your clinical edge — for your patients, and for yourself.
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