National Pathology Week 2026
Every November, the pathology community comes together to celebrate the people behind the diagnosis the scientists whose work in the laboratory shapes patient care every single day. National Pathology Week 2026 runs from 2-8 November, however we celebrate pathology week all month with different webinars. This year's theme, 'Welcome to the Lab', opening the door to what really goes on behind the scenes.
As proud members of the Pathology Alliance, LabMed is marking the week with a webinar that looks beyond the result on the page and asks what makes a test genuinely useful.
Webinar overview
The webinar takes a range of different tests and examines what they can tell us, where they fall short, and what happens when testing moves outside the traditional laboratory setting.
You'll look at gonorrhoea testing and the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance, weighing up online and privately provided services against attending a sexual health clinic in person. You'll examine prostate-specific antigen (PSA), the main tumour marker used to investigate prostate cancer and the live debate around who should be tested, and why population screening isn't currently recommended despite growing public pressure. And you'll explore the rise of direct-to-consumer testing, including whether fingerprick and upper-arm capillary samples really are comparable to venous blood, and what thyroid function test studies reveal about comparability and sample stability in transit.
Running through all the talks is a question that matters to anyone considering this profession: what makes a test reliable, who interprets it, and what are the consequences when the answer isn't as clear-cut as it looks?
Who should attend
This webinar is designed for students who are:
- Curious about a career as a laboratory scientist, whether or not you've settled on a specific route
- Studying biomedical science, biochemistry, immunology, microbiology, or a related life science degree
- Interested in the science behind diagnostic testing and how results are interpreted in practice
- Keen to understand the real-world issues shaping laboratory medicine right now
You don't need specialist knowledge to follow along. If you're curious about how tests work and why they matter, this session is for you
Highlights
- Understand why gonorrhoea testing services are needed, which techniques are used, and who provides them alongside the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance
- Compare private and online testing services with in-person sexual health clinics and recognise the advantages and drawbacks of each
- Explain what PSA measures and what it doesn't including why concentrations rise in both benign and malignant prostate disease and the everyday factors that can raise a result
- Engage with the prostate cancer screening debate, including why population screening for asymptomatic men isn't currently recommended and the concerns around PSA tests being sold directly to the public
- Evaluate the rise of direct-to-consumer testing, from its origins to the practical questions of capillary versus venous sampling, sample stability in transit, and where errors creep in
- Think critically about test interpretation which is a core skill for anyone working in a diagnostic laboratory
