Free email course · IQC · Five emails over ten days
What is your QC result telling you?
Make sense of internal quality control—one short email at a time.
A reassuring dot, an unexpected signal, a repeat that looks fine. What can each observation actually tell you? Learn the ideas behind familiar laboratory QC conversations.
Short and manageable
About three minutes
Each email explains one idea through a familiar situation or a brief reflection. Read it when it suits you.
Grounded in laboratory work
Make the language clearer
Explore control materials, charts, signals and repeats without being asked to design a QC plan.
Free, with a clear purpose
An introduction
Build understanding of numerical IQC using control materials. Detailed investigations and decisions still need the laboratory’s approved procedures.
Your five emails
A little more clarity each time.
For laboratory scientists, quality leads, managers and assessors seeking an introduction or refresher.
Day 0 · Email 1
What is your QC result telling you?
Understand what a control material monitors—and why acceptable IQC cannot rule out every patient-specimen problem.
Day 2 · Email 2
Read the chart, not just the latest dot
Recognise the axes, centre and comparison lines, and why the order of results matters.
Day 4 · Email 3
A signal is not a diagnosis
Separate an observed pattern from an explanation of its cause.
Day 7 · Email 4
Why a reassuring repeat is not the whole answer
Understand why a repeat can contribute evidence without making the original event disappear.
Day 10 · Email 5
Three questions to keep beside the chart
Bring the ideas together through three useful questions for everyday QC discussions.
Days are counted from confirmed enrolment, not particular weekdays. Delivery may vary slightly with email processing.
Try the approach
The controls look reassuring. Is every specimen therefore fine?
Imagine a fictional laboratory with reassuring IQC throughout the morning. One patient’s specimen was collected into the wrong tube. Does the control chart rule that out?
Reveal the explanation
No. The control material did not experience that patient’s specimen collection. IQC is useful evidence about what it monitors; it cannot exclude every specimen-specific problem.
Your educator
Stephen MacDonald PhD FRCPath
Consultant Clinical Scientist and educator, explaining laboratory measurement and quality through questions that arise in everyday work.
What this course will help you do
Follow a QC discussion and explain the limits of a control result. This introduction does not qualify you to design a QC plan or make laboratory release decisions. It carries no competence assessment or certificate.
Make IQC easier to understand.
Five short emails. Free to join. Enter your email address and confirm it using the message we send you. If you have already confirmed your address with our email-learning service, another confirmation may not be needed.
Your first lesson follows confirmed enrolment. The others arrive around days 2, 4, 7 and 10. Joining this course will not automatically enrol you in other courses or The Laboratory Quality Briefing.
You can stop the emails using the links in each lesson. Use email preferences to manage individual course choices. Read the privacy notice.
A few practical questions
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment or membership is required for these five introductory emails.
Can I take more than one course?
Yes. Each course has its own sign-up. If you start several together, their schedules can overlap.
Will I learn which QC rules to use?
You will understand the role of rules and why the sequence matters. Selecting rules, control levels and frequency for a real examination requires more detailed study and evidence.
What if an email does not arrive?
Check your junk folder and search for “IQC” from Pathology Uncertainty. For help, contact stephen@pathologymu.com.