TCM practitioners and Laboratory medicine (and other investigations)

To be honest I really do not understand why these TCM practitioners/herbalists are increasingly utilizing laboratory medicine to extend their patient care...

What is the trouble?

The trouble is not of the fact that they could order tests - any layman can order tests themselves and submit their blood sample to the laboratory - some laboratories even offer to take your blood and test it right away provided that you give up your almighty buck to them.

It is also not the fact that they are not (western-) medically trained that matters to me. To be honest I have little problem with bonesetters requesting radiographs - it is in fact helping the patient very much as these radiographs often come with accompanying reports (that are, indeed, easy to read - e.g. "avulsion fracture of the proximal end of the left 5th metatarsal" would be unmistakably understood, and referred to the orthopaedic surgeon)

The trouble is with interpretation. It is perhaps a convention that the common requests for the clinical chemistry laboratory are reported but not interpreted (e.g. blood gas, liver and renal function test panels, etc. see note 1.) and in fact interpreting the liver and renal function tests has not been an easy task even for some specialists... I have recently come across a patient with significant hyponatremia. He was diagnosed to have the syndrome of inappropriate ADH secretion "SIADH", even (1) in a dry clinical picture and  (2) he has been on a thiazide diuretic before admission.

The truth is that interpreting tests takes time and training to learn - and it is important to learn in a supervised manner, that you get the feedback from your senior that your interpretation is wrong.

It is not the first time for us to see people with chronic hepatitis B managed by certain herbalists missed their chance of curative treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) even though their biochemical picture is strongly suggestive of space-occupying lesions in the liver.

If they are not trained to do the interpretations correctly perhaps they shouldn't order it at all. It's just like calling a medical doctor to look at all the gauges and meters in the nuclear facility.

[1] Of course there exists tests that are interpreted, e.g. Serum electrophoresis, etc. but the majority of tests are not interpreted.