RESUMO
Clinical pathology tests have very important role in the diagnosis, treatment and follow up of patients. Attention to all of the steps in test processing including, 1] patient preparation, 2] sampling, 3] specimen transferring, 4] enough knowledge of lab interference, 5] finding test pitfalls, and 6] ability of test interpretation regarding patients' clinic is very important in using a precise and accurate test. This study tried to investigate the above parameters among the residents. In this study, knowledge of the residents of internal medicine, pediatrics, general surgery and gynecology were evaluated in 29 routine clinical pathology tests including biochemistry, hematology, microbiology, coagulation and immunology. In this study, the median score of all of the residents was 44.88 of 100. The median score of residents in the same degree, but different course, showed significant difference and the scores of residents of internal medicine and pediatrics were higher than residents of general surgery and gynecology [P < 0.02]. The median scores of third and forth year internal medicine residents were higher than their peers in the first and second year [P < 0.04], but this difference was not seen in other residents. The final results of all of the residents were below than 50 percent. This study reveals the inadequate knowledge of residents about the clinical tests. It also shows that the trend to residency of general surgery and gynecology has caused less attention to clinical tests in medical students. In addition, it shows that residents do not receive sufficient education about clinical pathology during their residency. We suggest that the curriculum of education of general medicine during clerkship and residency should be changed with regard to clinical pathology