UNC Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

The three coequal missions of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine are to: 1) provide exceptional, comprehensive, clinically effective and cost effective pathology and laboratory medicine services; 2) teach clinical and scientific concepts of pathology and laboratory medicine, and mechanisms of disease to a wide variety of learners; and 3) advance the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine, and the knowledge of diseases and disease mechanisms through innovative research spanning the spectrum from basic to translational to clinical.

Clinical Mission: In partnership with McLendon Clinical Laboratories of UNC Hospitals, the goals of the clinical mission of the Department are to provide pathology and laboratory medicine services that are optimum for patient care and disease prevention, to facilitate operations by other clinical units, and to contribute to the financial integrity of the UNC Health Care System.

Teaching Mission: As the only Department at UNC that is both a basic science department and a clinical department, the teaching mission is very complex and serves an extremely diverse spectrum of learners, including but not limited to medical students, dental students, clinical residents and fellows, postdoctoral research fellows, predoctoral students in the Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Pathology and other graduate programs, and a variety of undergraduate students in multiple Health Affairs and Academic Affairs courses and programs. The teaching mission also includes very active participation in continuing medical education at the local, regional, national and international levels.

Research Mission: The combined basic science and clinical expertise in the Department results in an extremely eclectic array of research endeavors ranging from fundamental basic discovery research to translational research to applied clinical research. To sustain the research mission, the faculty are very active and effective in pursuing extramural funding. Departmental expertise in evaluating diseases and mechanisms of disease is in ever increasing demand by clinical and basic science faculty in other departments and centers, and collaborative contributions to multidisciplinary research at UNC is considered to be an important component of the overall research mission. As custodians of fluid, cell and tissue samples utilized in the Department’s clinical mission, another element of the research mission is to facilitate the proper and authorized use of this invaluable resource for research in order to benefit patients in the future.