Medical and Undergraduate Student Opportunities

The Department of Laboratory Medicine is responsible for the Medical Microbiology (Laboratory Medicine 123a) and the basic Laboratory Medicine (Laboratory Medicine 102b) courses for second year Yale medical students. The Department also offers an advanced (3rd/4th year student) elective in clinical pathology (Laboratory Medicine 131). This latter course can be taken in a block of 2 or 4 weeks, one student per rotation. The contents are individualized for the interests of each student and may include in-depth clinical consultation work in transfusion medicine, clinical chemistry, virology, immunohematology, stem cell biology, microbiology, apheresis, or clinical pharmacology and toxicology. The Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology also offer a 4 week elective that combines two weeks of Laboratory Medicine and two weeks of Surgical Pathology. For details, see Laboratory Medicine and Surgical Pathology Elective.

The department invites 4th year students from other U.S. or Canadian medical schools to apply to take the clinical rotation. Inquiries should be addressed to Felicity Melillo, in the Office of Student Affairs at Yale School of Medicine. General inquiries can also be made to the Laboratory Medicine Director of Medical Studies .

Yale medical students are invited to apply to the Departmental faculty to serve as mentors for the senior thesis. Students from other medical schools may also apply to individual faculty to carry out research projects. Yale undergraduate students may also obtain a research experience with any of the Laboratory Medicine faculty through the courses: Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (MB&B)470a and/or 471b, and Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB) 475 and/or 495. Medical students who are considering a career in laboratory medicine or combined laboratory medicine and anatomic pathology, whether clinical or investigative, are invited to contact the Department about the possibility of an intensive senior or post-sophomore year experience and also about residency opportunities.

Finally, we encourage students to take advantage of some of our on-line educational materials. Simply follow the links below:

• On-Line Clinical Case Studies
• Lab News - Topics in clinical Laboratory Medicine
• Clinical Virology Newsletter
• Guide to Viral Diagnosis
• Lecture series in Laboratory Medicine