Pathology is a specialist area of medicine that includes the clinical subspecialities of haematology (disorders of the blood), immunology (disorders of the immune system), infectious diseases, including microbiology (disorders involving bacteria) and virology (disorders involving viruses).
Other pathological subspecialities that involve less clinical work and more laboratory work include clinical chemistry or chemical pathology (disorders of various chemicals in the body), histopathology (the examination of diseased tissue), cytology (the examination of cells).
Clinical pharmacology (the study of drugs) may also be considered to be a pathology subspecialism. Given the diverse nature of the subspecialities of pathology, there can be a large number of areas that may involve potential clinical negligence claims.