Patient Safety Corner Stacy E. Walz, PhD, MS, MT(ASCP), ASCLS Patient Safety Committee Chair One of the many wonderful resources easily accessible by laboratory professionals, other healthcare professionals, and the general public, is the blog, Lab Testing Matters, sponsored and managed by COLA. For several years now, the ASCLS Patient Safety Committee has proudly been…
Medical laboratorians respond to COVID-19: ASCLS sends a letter to Congress, free access to personal wellness keynote, attend a Virtual Break Room and/or Virtual Happy Hour, sign up for upcoming free webinars, and more.
Cindy Johnson, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM, ASCLS President Many of you have been asked to step into a leadership role that you may not have felt qualified to take on. However, someone had confidence that you could fulfill this role, perhaps with some guidance and training. Being a leader may not be easy, and that is the…
Jean Bauer, MLS(ASCP)CM, ASCLS Region V Director Photo credit: Maciej Ciupa Are leaders born with the ability to lead, or is leadership learned? The answer is both. The road to becoming a leader can start in different ways. Some professionals aspire to be leaders. They have the desire and drive to want to lead, whether…
Diane Valentin, MS, MT(ASCP)MB Twice a year I am “forced” to look at the ASCLS Code of Ethics.1 Not because my boss is making me do this but because I am doing it for the sake of my students. In our freshman MLS orientation class, I introduce them to this document as a way to…
Jessica Lawless, MLS(ASCP)CM, ASCLS Ascending Professionals Forum Vice Chair Photo credit: Josef F. Stuefer As a graduate of Texas A&M University, which has one of the most active alumni organizations in the world, I have always understood the importance of networking. This is one of the reasons I jumped at the opportunity to join—and stay…
Chloe Thompson, MLS(ASCP)CM The symptoms of burnout range from increased cynicism and decreased ability to concentrate on our tasks at hand to disrupted sleep, headaches, and other physical symptoms. Photo credit: Rolf Dietrich Brecher Burnout. We all know the feeling—where work has somehow infiltrated every aspect of life, how stress is amplified, and there never…
Jie Gao, PhD, MLS(ASCP)CM The clinical laboratory always seeks to improve services due to its close association to patient safety and satisfaction. However, clinical laboratory testing is a highly complex process (i.e., preanalytical phase, analytical phase, and postanalytical phase), and the frequency of laboratory errors has been reported to be 0.012-0.6 percent of all test…
April Nelsen, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM; Rosemarie Clauson, MLS(ASCP)CM; Kassi Erickson, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM; Stacie Lansink, MS, MT(ASCP); and Tiffany Niemann, MLS(ASCP)CM After weeks of shortness of breath and sharp chest pain, a 48-year-old Caucasian female presented to the ED in a hypertensive state; her blood pressure was 193/113. Her history revealed preeclampsia in a previous pregnancy resulting…
George A. Fritsma, MS, MLS(ASCP)CM Lt. George Fritsma in 1970 and George Fritsma now. When I joined ASCLS—then the American Society for Medical Technology (ASMT)—in 1970, I was an Air Force first lieutenant directing a lab at Selfridge AFB north of Detroit. The annual convention was held at Cobo Hall (since demolished) in downtown Detroit,…