Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Kim Von Ahsen, MHA, MLS(ASCP)CM, SLS(ASCP)CM, ASCLS President In the opening scene of Act III of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet ponders a question, albeit one of the most serious of matters. It’s the use of literary devices like antithesis of “To be or not to be” or the antimetabole…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Benjamin Galvan, MLS(ASCP), CIC, CPH, ASCLS Patient Safety Committee Achieving your healthcare career goals can be tough, especially when your role is not always in the spotlight. As a former laboratory professional that transitioned into the infection prevention (IP) career space, one of the greatest roadblocks was understanding…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Melissa E. Wyatt, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM, Kentucky Society for Clinical Laboratory Science President “I wish I had found this degree sooner!” As a clinical laboratory educator, I have heard this statement many times from students. Students must identify with the medical laboratory profession before choosing this career path. The…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Jolene Le, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS Developing Professionals Forum Councilor Ivann Martinez, PhD, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS Developing Professionals Forum It was my primary care physician that helped me understand the true problem with visibility in the field of clinical laboratory science. I visited my primary care physician to get a physical…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Galina Dronova, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS-Minnesota President-Elect When you think of the year 2020, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For many, the answer may be “the pandemic,” “the year the world shut down,” or at times the answer contains more personal tragedies and successes. For me, one…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Constance Stager, MBA, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS Director This month’s focus on professional visibility is an important topic, not only for the profession, but for the individual professional as well. Medical laboratory science is often referred to as “The hidden profession that saves lives.” An often-repeated statistic is that “70…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Christen Diel, MS, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council Counselor-at-Large Clinical laboratory science is a passion I never knew I had when asked, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” But it is a career that I could not imagine my life without now. Medicine has…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Heather Santaniello, MLS(ASCP)CMMB(ASCP)CM, ASCLS Political Action Committee Chair, ASCLS Ascending Professionals Forum Councilor-at-Large Visibility of this profession is crucial. Workforce shortages and burnout has been a struggle for this profession for years. The way we solve this problem long term is to promote the profession and make it…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Aymen Saihati, MS Although they are essential to the process of disease diagnosis and treatment, medical laboratory professionals are frequently in the background and go unnoticed. Through discussion of the benefits of professional visibility for laboratory professionals, the obstacles they face, and the ways in which they can…
Volume 37 Number 2 | April 2023 Ali Nussbaum, MA, MLS(ASCP)CM Laboratory: the behind-the-scenes profession that no one has ever heard of … or at least, that is what people in the field say as we try to remain purposely unknown. The COVID-19 pandemic has made the lab a front and center force to demonstrate…