[Everyday questions in laboratory medicine].

Until the sixties, it was usual for a MD to make some lab tests in a room close to his medical office. During the next decades, the number of lab tests has exploded, and the performance of the test became dissociated from the MD ordering the tests. All Belgian clinical laboratories are involved in the management of a quality system, and within it, the general practitioner is essential as partner. Good communication with him/her may put in evidence inadequacies in some processes such as the performance of the tests or the transmission of the reports to the ordering MD. The requirement for a good contact between the ordering MD and the clinical pathologist is described in some cases of everyday work in laboratory medicine: screening for thyroid dysfunction; indications of total PSA and free PSA; screening for hemochromatosis; prothrombin time and INR; serology tests for infectious mononucleosis or syphilis.