General pathology describes the scientific study of disease which can be described as any abnormailty that is causing changes in the structure or function of body parts. In pathology, the causes, mechanisms and extent of disease may be examined.
The resulting changes in the structure or function of a body part and significance of the disease is also considered. A general pathologist would usually be familiar with all aspects of laboratory analysis and trained in clinical chemistry, microbiology and hematology, for example, but their knowledge would be less detailed than that of a subspecialist in one of these fields.