A ONE AND ONLY PROUD CHAMPION OF OPENED GENERAL MEDICAL PRACTICE SERVICING
GEORGIA, ALABAMA, AND FLORIDA
Opening the Window of Transparency and Accountability in General Medical Practice
Founded by Dr. Gates, MD, this is a premier primary care and laboratory medical practice.
We offer you “The value of a first or second diagnostic medical opinion and treatment,” as well as partnership in primary care medicine and rapid diagnostic laboratory medicine. That's right, you walk away with an accurate diagnosis and treatment the same day; no waiting.
Many patients often depart their primary care doctor, hospital, or even health clinic often with more questions than answers. In an effort to find clarity about medical information, patients refer to certain medical websites that may provide information about medical diseases, diagnoses, and treatment options much too complex for patients to understand. This may cause for undue frustration on the part of patients. 
Rest assured, MDC is here to help you fill in the gaps with simple, plain English answers to your medical questions. Questions regarding ALL specialties and subspecialties of diagnostic medicine are directly addressed with you, the patient. We can guide you in regards to staying healthy and preventing certain diseases before the disease state is TOO ADVANCED. We also can advise you in regards to treatment and management strategy, featuring "doctor, is my disease being diagnosed, treated and managed effectively?"
WHAT'S SO UNIQUE ABOUT OUR PRACTICE IS THAT WE COME TO YOUR HOME OR OFFICE TO PROVIDE GENERAL DIAGNOSTIC AND THERAPEUTIC MEDICAL SERVICES (MEDICAL HOME),
OR
YOU MAY VISIT US AT OUR CLINIC ON CLEVELAND AVENUE in ATLANTA, GEORGIA by Appointment
Our practice is designed to:
1. Develop a personable partnership with patients about their healthy care in general;
2. Educate and Advise the Patient and General Public about Laboratory Medicine and Pathology;
3. Refer Patients to appropriate physician-specialists for treatment, management and follow up of certain types of disease
EDUCATING THE PATIENT AND PUBLIC ABOUT LABORATORY MEDICINE AND PATHOLOGY
THE CLINICAL LABORATORY:
Blood or bodily fluid is received in the clinical laboratory;
The picture above represents an example of a specimen (sample for testing) receiving and processing station in a medical laboratory.
The laboratory medical doctor determines through objective means if a patient may have or may be developing early signs of disease.
In most instances, the final results of medical laboratory tests performed in the CLINICAL LABORATORY are able to be repeated with similar objectively derived results from one laboratory to a different laboratory ( a practice routinely done by scientists).
Medical laboratory tests performed in the CLINICAL LABORATORY are often based on "true or proven" evidence of disease with an error rate generally being less than 1%. This low percentage error rate is primarily due to automation. Automation is a process whereby robotic machines perform the actual medical lab tests, interfaced with a computer database system (This means that your lab test results are directly reported to your doctor or practitioner as final results from automatic robotic sample analyzers, without manipulation by human hands, and thus, decreasing lab error). The medical laboratory tests generally assess the functions of the internal organs by analyzing chemical structures in the blood, plasma, serum, urine or other bodily fluids.
An evaluation by a clinical doctor who typically evaluates patients in an office and performs a physical examination without oversight, would essentially depend on the clinical doctor's level of experience, knowledge, skills, and ability to "critically think" or utilize inductive and deductive reasoning in reaching an accurate medical diagnosis.
THE ANATOMIC (PATHOLOGY) LABORATORY:
Tissue or cellular fluid sample is received in the laboratory;
The medical laboratory expert assigns a unique number to the sample, prior to beginning the actural testing process.
Care is required to make certain that the tissue or cellular fluid sample belongs to the appropriate patient;
Error in a large laboratory that processes large volume of samples could potentially take place because of lack of caution taken by the laboratory or mishandling of sample prior to receipt in the laboratory.
The above picture represents a biopsy (small tissue sampling) of the colon taken by a gastro-intestinal (GI) doctor during a screening colonoscopy. Upon review by the laboratory expert, Dr. Gates, who analyzed the characteristics of the tissue using a microscope, the final interpretation was diagnosed as an early form of colon cancer. The GI doctor was notified by the pathologist about the diagnostic findings. The pathologist at that time recommended complete excision of the cancerous growth. However, the GI doctor decided to follow the patient nearly a year later instead of removing the tumor and perhaps, saving the patient's life. The patient died within two years with advanced metastatic (to spread to other parts of the body) colon cancer.
MDC-Atlanta treats every patient individually by working directly with the patient and/or the patient's clinic doctor or nurse practitioner for diagnostic evaluation, treatment and management of specific diseases.
The tissue or cellular fluid sample undergoes processing for further studies.
A dye-stained slide is generally ultimately received from those studies for review under the microscope by a medical laboratorian or pathologist.
In a commercial medical laboratory that does not interview the patient in person, or directly assess the patient's clinical medical condition, the studies from the patient's clinical lab tests or anatomic pathology studies, potentially, could be mishandled and the final analysis could be incorrectly assigned to a patient by error. This is called "preanalytical error" which the literature reports that this error accounts for an average estimate of 30% of errors in laboratory medicine practice.
A final interpretation of the lab study is often sent to the patient's clinic or hospital based physician. Often times, the patient is not familiar with the pathologist's or laboratorian's ability, skills, or experience, and generally doesn't know how the pathologist derived at the summation of the lab study. Studies have shown that in certain physician specialties, clinic doctors misinterpreted the pathologists' medical diagnostic reports in excess of 30%.
Often times in certain sub-specialties of pathology, a general primary care doctor may not be able to determine if the pathologist's interpretation of the lab study is accurate or not, and this may require direct-consultation with a laboratory medicine expert.
According to Standards of Medical Care, certain sub-specialties of laboratory medicine require one to seek another unbiased opinion by a different, independent pathologist. These would include such sub-specialties as those that deal with the study of cells as with Pap-smears, and the diagnosis of certain types of cancers as with breast, colon, lung, prostate, cancers of blood cells, as well as cancers of female reproductive system, for instance.
Studies have shown that the pathologists' collective interpretive errors are in excess of 50% in certain sub-specialties of diagnostic pathology, requiring a second opinion or second review by different groups of independent pathologists. At MDC-Atlanta, our goal is to minimize diagnostic errors to near 0%. At MDC-Atlanta, we are able to achieve this level of accuracy because we share ALL difficult pathology images/diagnoses as well as unusual clinical diagnoses via online, digital connectivity with experts all around the world. In other words, our practice is essentially without walls (completely transparent) unlike a local or regional community hospital, large reference laboratory or academic center which could potentially hide BIAS and ERROR, even among their junior level attending/reviewing pathologists without oversight. This process of viewing medical images and cases via the internet is known as Telemedicine or Tele-pathology
The picture above represents high-grade tumor cells in a pap smear, FALSELY diagnosed as "NEGATIVE" by a cytotechnologist.
Second reviewing independent pathologist should not be associated or affiliated (institutionally or otherwise) with the primary reviewing pathologist because of the potential for bias and/or cover-up of medical diagnostic mistakes.
Now through this practice, Dr. Gates has provided an online resource for a patient and busy clinic doctor as well as nurse practitioner to directly consult with a general practitioner/laboratory medicine expert, or a group of other clinical doctors during medical conference discussions to learn about a specific disease or risk of disease affecting the patient, as well as to provide second opinion to prevent misdiagnoses, and to guide the patient and busy clinic doctor or nurse practitioner towards a partnership for quality, safe, efficient, and AFFORDABLE health care.
The medical laboratory expert directly evaluates the patient at the patient's bed-side in the doctor's office. A fine-needle aspiration was performed on a nodular thyroid gland. A diagnostic aspirate was achieved, and the patient walked away without complication; the patient received a specific and accurate diagnosis just minutes after the procedure; and the patient only had a tiny needle puncture site from where the biopsy was taken. The final diagnosis: BENIGN thyroid gland, NO evidence of cancer (Specific Diagnosis: Benign cystic multinodular goiter, no evidence of papillary neoplasm or malignancy).
Our mobile care team is available to provide direct convenient services for further medical evaluation, treatment and management at your home, office, or assisted/independent living facility.
A common expression among physicians is that: The pathologists , being the "multi-disciplinary experts," know everything and do everything, but too late.
To modify that expression through MDC-Atlanta: The pathologists or laboratory medicine experts are familiar with many diseases and are apart of various medical management teams, designed to prevent advanced diseases. At MDC-Atlanta, we, as your primary care provider, plan to accomplish this through medical counseling, treatment/management, second opinion, sharing difficult medical cases, and analyzing the current medical literature among other clinical colleagues, as well as referring our patients to the appropriate experts, i.e. oncologists, cardiologists, nephrologists and others for complete medical care.
MDC-Atlanta, is a subsidiary company of Gates' Rapid Diagnostic Laboratory of Atlanta, Inc., an incorporated franchise whose headquarter is located in Georgia.