This learning guide is intended to serve the basic educational needs of new medical laboratory scientists who are entering the field of clinical laboratory medicine. Anyone associated with the specialty of clinical chemistry or the clinical laboratory will find this learning guide of interest. Typical readers will include medical laboratory technicians and medical technologists, laboratory supervisors and managers, nurses, laboratory support personnel and physician office laboratory personnel. HOW TO USE THIS LEARNING GUIDE To offer the most benefit, this learning guide begins each section with an Overview so you can quickly review its goals and content. Next is a set of Learning Objectives. These focus on the key concepts presented in each section. There is a short Review quiz at the end of each section designed to help recall the concepts introduced. If a question is answered incorrectly, the appropriate portions of the text may be reviewed before moving to the next section. A glossary is at the end of this learning guide for quick reference. There are also references and resources devoted to other recommended reading for more details and further study.