Volume 39 Number 6 | December 2025
Summary

ASCLS fosters belonging by promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion so all laboratorians feel visible and valued. Through the Diversity Advocacy Council, PRISM, inclusive leadership pathways, and DEIB-focused programs, ASCLS strengthens professional identity and community. This article urges members to support one another, elevate underrepresented voices, and help make belonging a lived reality across the profession.

Making Every Voice Count in ASCLS

Susan Stalewski, MBA, MLS(ASCP), ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council Councilor at Large

Susan StalewskiMore than 20 years ago at a Clinical Laboratory Educators Conference (CLEC) in New Orleans, I heard a keynote speaker emphasize that America’s growing diversity would reshape the healthcare workforce and the American population. That message has remained with me, shaping my work, where I live, my community and professional service, and now my role as a councilor to the ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC).

“ASCLS is an inclusive, culturally relevant community of people acknowledging their differences and unique characteristics; it is an organization where all persons can engage and participate in a meaningful way empowering everyone to grow and learn.” (ASCLS DAC, n.d.) In my career, I have benefited from inclusion in the medical laboratory profession and ASCLS. I have also felt the invisibility and lack of inclusion that comes with being a laboratorian in the continuum of the healthcare industry. Patients rarely meet us, providers often overlook us, administrators in higher education don’t know what we do, and our essential role in diagnosis and treatment can go unrecognized.

Belonging Matters

In more than a decade of facilitating interprofessional education initiatives, I have often reflected on how the goals of interprofessional practice target improved patient outcomes through collegiality, respect, and teamwork among the healthcare workforce. Research shows that patients experience better outcomes when cared for by teams in which all healthcare professionals, including laboratorians, are recognized as essential members. (Cadet et al., 2023).

Belonging and recognition strengthen professional identity. In turn, this builds deeper commitment to the team and to the mission of patient care. When people feel they belong, they are more likely to stay in their jobs and in the profession. That makes belonging not only a matter of individual well-being but also a workforce imperative and a patient-safety issue. (Schaechter et al., 2023)

“For me, DEIB comes down to this: no laboratorian should feel invisible.”

How ASCLS Builds Belonging

Belonging doesn’t happen without diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through its leadership, policies, and the DAC, ASCLS recognizes and promotes diversity in gender and identity, generational perspectives, ability and accessibility, socioeconomic and educational pathways, culture, and language. Each of these influences whether someone feels like they matter, whether they are heard, and whether they see themselves as part of the larger profession.

ASCLS has taken concrete steps to turn belonging into action. The DAC creates spaces for essential conversations and thought-provoking experiences such as book clubs, movie nights, and candid conversations, where members share perspectives so others can learn. Since 2021, PRISM (Pride, Respect, Inclusion, Support, Momentum) has supported belonging through cultural programs, open dialogue, and fundraising to encourage underrepresented voices to rise into leadership roles. (ASCLS n.d.)

ASCLS has removed region requirements for Board positions with the goal of opening leadership pathways to a wider group of members, and ASCLS Today dedicates issues to DEIB. Our conference program committees, made of are ASCLS members, ensure that CLEC, the Joint Annual Meeting (JAM), and Emerging Laboratory Managers Collaborative Conference (ELMC2) include DEIB sessions that train educators, leaders, and all members to build belonging in their own workplaces.

Our organization is combatting invisibility with intentional action and a culture of recognition, encouraging members and all laboratory professionals to step forward, be visible, and use their individual and collective voices to shape the future of healthcare.

My Commitment

For me, DEIB comes down to this: no laboratorian should feel invisible. Whether you are a student entering your first rotation, a laboratory scientist or technician working the night shift, a professional balancing disability or language differences, or a seasoned leader, you know your work matters and your voice counts, regardless of your age, gender, identity, background, or pathway into the profession.

I have seen how easy it can be for laboratory professionals to fade into the background of healthcare’s story. But I have also seen how powerful it is when ASCLS members step forward, support one another, and insist on being visible. That is why I serve on the DAC, why I support PRISM, and why I believe ASCLS is more than an association, it is a professional home where invisibility is replaced by recognition, voice, and belonging.

A Call to Action

Our professional and personal futures depend on whether we can work together across differences, support one another as colleagues, and commit to a just culture that leaves no one behind. ASCLS has already declared diversity, inclusion, and equity as one of its core values. Now it is up to us to make belonging the lived reality.

Here are four simple actions every member can take to strengthen belonging in ASCLS and in the medical laboratory profession.

  1. Invite and acknowledge contributions from students, new professionals, and colleagues from underrepresented groups.
  2. Use inclusive language and recognize diverse traditions to show all identities are valued.
  3. Guide and recommend someone new to the profession for ASCLS membership, opportunities, and leadership.
  4. Encourage reciprocal mentorship that values both fresh ideas and seasoned experience.

Let us continue to build an ASCLS where every member knows that they matter, where their contributions are visible, and where their voices shape the future of our profession.

References
  • ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council. (n.d.). Home – Diversity Advocacy Council. ASCLS Connected Community. https://ascls.connectedcommunity.org/dac/home
  • (n.d.). PRISM: Pride · Respect · Inclusion · Support · Momentum. https://ascls.org/prism/
  • Cadet, T., Cusimano, J., McKearney, S., Honaker, J., O’Neal, C., Taheri, R., … Cohn, J. S. (2023). Describing the evidence linking interprofessional education interventions to improving the delivery of safe and effective patient care: a scoping review. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 38(3), 476–485. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2023.2283119
  • Schaechter JD, Goldstein R, Zafonte RD, Silver JK. Workplace Belonging of Women Healthcare Professionals Relates to Likelihood of Leaving. J Healthc Leadersh. 2023 Oct 26;15:273-284. doi: 10.2147/JHL.S431157. PMID: 37908972; PMCID: PMC10615104.

Susan Stalewski is Clinical Professor, Biomedical Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.