How some doctors interpret lab test results - do not do this!

Dr Norman Swan, a so-called celebrity doctor is often on the ABC as a medical advisor. He was the Australian federal government's main health spokesman during the COVID years, where he was (and still is) pushing the you-know-what as being "safe and effective". Despite all the science to the contrary.

In his almost 50 years as a doctor, he seems to have learnt something shocking today!

Dr Swan had an interview with a fellow doctor about blood tests for liver function and fatty liver disease. She explained how she quickly skims through pathology results which have come in from the labs each day, which is a concern. She was only looking for highlighted or bolded results for patients which fall outside of the reference range, and nothing else!

Dr Swan told a story from a listener about her husband's blood test results, and in particular the liver function markers, which were in the "normal" range but he in fact had a fatty liver. He spoke with a liver specialist doctor who said that the pathology lab's reference ranges (she called them the "normal ranges") are lab-specific, even when labs use the same equipment! If the normal ranges are lab-specific, they are also location-specific too, as population centres with more cases of fatty liver will have different reference ranges to other locations. Dr Swan was "gobsmacked" when he learnt this!

I could have told him 10 years ago!

I wonder what Dr Swan will say when he finds out that the reference ranges for ALL blood pathology results are just a statistical average of unhealthy peoples' results! This is not a great way at all to interpret patients' blood test results.

It seems that all the doctors in this podcast need to do the IIFP pathology analysis training courses, and to learn how to properly interpret all blood test results!

Here's the link to the ABC interview with Dr Swan:
www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/healthreport/fatty-liver-function-alt-test/105234594
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For more info on the IIFP pathology analysis training courses, please see the other links on this website.