Laboratory Medicine | Bacteriology Laboratory

• Gregory A. Storch, M.D., Director  h | c

The pediatric Bacteriology Laboratory at St. Louis Children's Hospital serves the special needs of pediatric patients in a unique teaching environment. Our lab is staffed 24 hours a day to provide rapid diagnostic testing and processing of bacteriology cultures. The pediatric Bacteriology Lab excels in work-up of organisms common in infants and children such as Group B Streptococcus and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Our lab has also been active in aggressively seeking the most appropriate blood culture system for pediatrics and reports of this work have been published in peer reviewed journals and presented at national meetings. What makes us unique is our emphasis on communication and responsiveness. Daily lab rounds, attended by Infectious Diseases physicians, medical students, residents, the Infection Control nurses, and the lab staff are held in the Lab to review current cases. During this time, technologists review gram stains and explain identification techniques. In exchange, technologists in the lab are made aware of the patients' clinical conditions to guide them in the work-up of cultures and appropriate selection of antibiotic susceptibility testing, frequently avoiding unnecessary testing and therefore saving money.