Volume 36 Number 3 | June 2022
DeAnne Maxwell, MBA, MLS(ASCP)CM, CLEC 2022 Steering Committee Chair
Well, it finally happened. We welcomed over 630 educators from across the country at the 2022 Clinical Laboratory Educators Conference (CLEC) in Denver on March 14. Whether attending in-person or joining virtually, for three days we bonded, learned, shared, visited, and smiled.
The conference started with an amazing opening keynote from Kim Becking. She gave us permission to relinquish being responsible for the rest of the world and urged us not to necessarily bounce back from everything we have gone through these last two years, but to bounce forward! It was energizing, motivating, and a great kickoff to the conference.
Throughout the next days we learned from our fellow educators about new tricks of the trade and relished in the opportunity to rejoin our community. You could feel the energy as old friends greeted one another and new friendships blossomed.
We were joined by 22 industry partners who showcased innovative technologies, textbooks, and other educational materials for the educators—both in the exhibit area in Denver and in their virtual booths. Six of our partners also held commercial symposia to spend additional time highlighting their products and services.
Special thank yous go out to all our session and poster presenters, moderators, the host committee, the ASCLS staff, the audio/visual engineers, and the folks who attended the networking bubbles both virtually and in person. I hope you all had rich and meaningful conversations.
The closing keynote speaker, Amy Dee, gave us both an emotional and hilarious sendoff to hit the road. Her stories of trying on dresses too small and her father eating out kept us in stitches and may have even drawn a tear or two. And of course, her message, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change,” will continue to resonate with us all.
Denver did its part in making the conference a success. We arrived to blue skies with no clouds, a heavy dose of snow on the mountains in the distance, but a warm and cheery 70 degrees during the day.
The CLEC Steering Committee will be firing up again very soon. We are eager to evaluate feedback from this conference and see what changes we can make as we start looking to New Orleans, scheduled for March 2-4, 2023. We are accepting educational session proposals for CLEC 2023 through June 11. Think about what you can share with other educators and get those submissions in!
DeAnne Maxwell is the Program Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at Franciscan Health in Indianapolis, Indiana.
