This document discusses various statistical concepts and their applications in clinical laboratories. It defines descriptive statistics, statistical analysis, measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode), measures of variation (variance, standard deviation), probability distributions (binomial, Gaussian, Poisson), and statistical tests (t-test, chi-square, F-test). It provides examples of how these statistical methods are used to monitor laboratory test performance, interpret results, and compare different laboratory instruments and methods.
1. Practical Applications of Statistical Methods in the Clinical Laboratory Roger L. Bertholf, Ph.D., DABCC Associate Professor of Pathology Director of Clinical Chemistry & Toxicology UF Health Science Center/Jacksonville
2. “ [Statistics are] the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.” [Sir] Francis Galton (1822-1911)
3. “ There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics” Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
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5. “ Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater” Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
6. “ I don't believe in mathematics” Albert Einstein
64. “ Like the ski resort full of girls hunting for husbands and husbands hunting for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.” Alan Lindsay Mackay (1926- )
71. [On the Gaussian curve] “Experimentalists think that it is a mathematical theorem while the mathematicians believe it to be an experimental fact.” Gabriel Lippman (1845-1921 )
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73. "Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics" Siméon Poisson (1781-1840)
209. “ To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a postmortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.” Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890 - 1962)
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211. “ He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts -- for support rather than illumination.” Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
217. “ In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.” Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902- 1984)