PRISM

PRISM: Pride · Respect · Inclusion · Support · Momentum

Join us as we celebrate and ignite discussions regarding diversity in the profession and the inequities in our healthcare system. The ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) invites you to participate in PRISM: Pride · Respect · Inclusion · Support · Momentum, which debuted in January 2021. As leaders and members, we understand that the most uncomfortable conversations can be the most educational, productive, and inspiring. With this in mind, the DAC organized PRISM, a series of virtual activities, including movie nights, book clubs, and conversations with featured guests.

All events will be held virtually via Zoom and are free to attend.

2024-25 PRISM Events

Candid Conversation with Kelcey Harper and Christen Diel

Monday, January 20, 7:30 pm ET

Kelcey Harper is a seasoned medical laboratory scientist with nearly 10 years of experience spanning across the hospital laboratory, industry, and public health sectors. They hold a BS in Medical Laboratory Science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and an MS in Infectious Disease from Drexel University College of Medicine. Currently, Kelcey serves as a Public Health Microbiologist with the Vermont Department of Health, where they oversee a broad range of molecular testing, including whole genome sequencing for foodborne outbreaks, wastewater surveillance, virology, serology, and rabies testing.

In addition to their full-time role, Kelcey is a chemistry lab instructor at the University of Vermont, where they share their expertise and passion for science with the next generation of students.

As a transgender member of the LGBTQIA+ community, Kelcey has navigated numerous challenges both personally and professionally. Their experience as a patient seeking gender-affirming care have highlighted the complexities and inequities of the U.S. healthcare system. Through their lived experience, Kelcey is committed to advocating for better access to care and creating more inclusive environments for marginalized communities.

Christen Diel is an accomplished Clinical Laboratory Scientist with eight years of practice in various laboratory roles, including generalist, senior scientist, department supervisor, and shift supervisor. Christen is currently pursuing a Doctor of Clinical Laboratory Science degree at Rutgers University, while serving as Supervisor of Clinical Pathology Services at Wellstar Medical College of Georgia.

Christen is deeply committed to advocating for diverse patient populations and laboratory professionals. As an advanced practice laboratory professional and wife to a transgender man, her research focuses on LGBTQIA+ representation in healthcare, particularly the challenges faced by transgender and non-binary individuals in diagnostic care, including reference intervals and clinical practices. Christen actively works to influence standards that promote inclusion, equity, and access within the clinical laboratory field and education by her participation in the ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council and the NAACLS IDEA Taskforce. Her passion for improving healthcare for marginalized communities is reflected in both her academic research and her leadership in shaping policies that support diverse and equitable practices for patients and scientists alike.

Movie Night: The Healthcare Divide

Tuesday, January 21, 7 pm ET

The ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) invites you to attend a viewing of the documentary, The Healthcare Divide, to watch it together virtually with other ASCLS members.

FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the growing inequities in American healthcare exposed by COVID-19. The Healthcare Divide examines how pressure to increase profits and uneven government support are widening the divide between rich and poor hospitals, endangering care for low-income populations.

The movie runs 54 minutes. There will be opportunities to chat during the movie, as well as a brief follow-up discussion at the end.

Dynamic Discussion with Julie Cooper

Wednesday, January 22, 7 pm ET

Elevating the Laboratory through Clinical Lab 2.0 – Why Labs Should Adopt it and How it Impacts Health Disparities

View Recording

The healthcare transformation from volume-based to value-based care has been underway for decades. Historically, laboratories have operated on a transactional basis—from receipt to result. The Clinical Lab 2.0 movement is revolutionizing the traditional lab model by leveraging lab data from a longitudinal perspective to deliver actionable, clinical insights. The data is used on a broader scale to identify patient populations at risk for chronic disease and conditions, close care gaps, discover rising risks, and slow disease progression. It plays a pivotal role in in exposing health disparities allowing providers to target, monitor, and adjust interventions to address health needs of specific populations. This shift aims to improve patient outcomes and reduce the overall cost of care. While resulting tests remains fundamental to our work, adopting the Clinical Lab 2.0 model will enable us to significantly enhance our value to patients.

Julie Cooper is a versatile healthcare executive who boldly masters new challenges and achieves business and operational targets through influence, thinking differently, and exploring what is possible. She has over 30 years of experience leading across a diverse healthcare landscape including laboratory operations in anatomic pathology, clinical laboratory, blood bank, billing, accreditation, and customer support services as well as behavioral health ED operations, a senior behavioral medicine unit, and healthcare education. She currently serves as the Vice President of Value-Based Care and Quality for ACL – the enterprise laboratory for Advocate Health. In this role she leads the strategic and operational direction of ACL’s conversion to value-based care and transition to Clinical Lab 2.0. She is also responsible for leading the quality management, regulatory, safety, compliance, performance improvement, and government affairs activity for the enterprise laboratory. Julie serves on several mentorship and educational boards, is a Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives and has held several offices in her local ACHE Chapter. Julie enjoys distance running and reading.

Book Club – Dismissed: Tackling the Biases That Undermine our Health Care

January – April 2025

Dismissed: Tackling the Biases That Undermine our Health Care

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Race, gender, sexual orientation, age, body size, income, and other cultural factors have a significant bearing on whether you will be diagnosed and treated correctly. The good news is regardless of whether you are a patient, healthcare provider, or administrator, there are steps you can take today to combat medical bias.

Let’s enjoy reading this book together. Letycia Nunez-Argote will again be our moderator for this year’s book club.

The book has 19 chapters, so we will work on it starting January 20 (during PRISM) and run through Medical Laboratory Professionals Week in April ( about 14 weeks total).

This is an asynchronous book club. Every two weeks we will post comments to the Bookclubs group discussion board to address some of our own thoughts, including some answers to the authors’ discussion guide. And, those who participate by posting a comment while we are reading together (January-April 2025) will be entered into a drawing for a fun surprise at the end of book club.

Learn more about the virtual book club and sign up below.

2023-24 PRISM Events

Book Club: The Diversity Gap

January 7-14

The Diversity Gap: Where Good Intentions Meet True Cultural Change

The Diversity Gap is a fearless, groundbreaking guide to help leaders at every level shatter the barriers that are causing diversity efforts to fail. Combining real-world research with honest first-person experiences, racial justice facilitator Bethaney Wilkinson provides leaders a replicable structure to foster a diverse culture of belonging within your organization. Online discussions of one chapter per day will take place the week of January 7.

Candid Conversation with Letycia C. Nuñez Argote

Monday, January 15, 8 pm ET

Letycia C. Nuñez Argote, PhD, CPH, MLS(ASCP)^CM, is ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council Past Chair and Secretary of ASCLS-Kansas. She also serves as Clinical Associate Professor with the department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences at the University of Kansas. She identifies as a white-passing, non-disabled, cis-gender, heterosexual person, who is a proficient user of English as a second language due to her fully bilingual, private, K-12 education. These traits intersect with her status as a child from a multigenerational household, a foreign-born Mexican, and a Latina whose current permanent resident status in the United States was achieved after nine years holding a work visa. The conversation will be moderated by Emilia Marrero-Greene, MEd, MT(AAB), M(ASCP).

Dynamic Discussion with the eLABorate Topics Podcast Hosts

Tuesday, January 16, 7 pm ET

This forum offers a deep dive into the crucial role of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in shaping supportive environments within medical laboratory settings. Participants will explore how to effectively integrate DEI principles into support systems, understand the impact of these practices on emotional well-being, and learn strategies for promoting inclusive allyship in the workplace. The session aims to provide actionable insights and tools to help medical lab professionals create a more inclusive, equitable, and empathetic work culture, fostering a sense of belonging and respect for all. Lona Gordon Small, MBA, PMP, CPBPM, MLS(ASCP); Stephanie Whitehead, MBA, MPH, MLS(ASCP); and Tywauna Wilson, MBA, MLS(ASCP), are the hosts of the eLABorate Topics podcast.

Glenda Price Diversity in Leadership Award Online Fundraiser

January 12-17

This award honors Glenda Price, the first African American president of ASCLS (formerly ASMT), and was created to promote diversity and inclusion within the ASCLS leadership.

You can help in three ways:

Donate money directly to the Glenda Price scholarship. Text PRISM24 to 76278. Every donation counts!
Donate an item to be included in the online fundraising event. Examples of items to donate include gift baskets/boxes that represent the diversity in your area; jewelry; and food that highlights your culture. Donated items will be accepted now through the morning of January 12.
- It is very easy to donate an item: just register at PRISM24.givesmart.com to donate an item and/or bid on an item. The donor will receive a receipt for the item and will also be responsible for the shipping cost to the winner.
Bid on an item in the silent auction. Bidding will start Friday, January 12, at 12 pm ET, and participants will be notified via text if they are outbid on an item. Register at PRISM24.givesmart.com to bid on an item. Bidding will end on Wednesday, January 17, at 8 pm ET.

Movie Night: Neurodivergent

Friday, September 22, 3pm ET
Saturday, September 23, 6pm ET

The ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) invites you to attend a viewing party for the movie, Neurodivergent, to watch it together virtually with other ASCLS members.

Neurodivergent is a profoundly personal mixed media experience inside the ADHD mind of director Afton Quast Saler. Follow the filmmaker’s journey as she discovers her ADHD diagnosis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Post-it notes to magnets, keys, pens, rubber bands, and receipts, the unorganized chaos of a junk drawer is the perfect representation of what Afton’s brain feels like every day.

The movie runs 25 minutes. There will be opportunities to chat during the movie, as well as a brief follow-up discussion at the end.

Download the 2023 PRISM Movie Night flyer and help spread the word to colleagues, students, and friends.

2022-23 PRISM Events

2023 Candid Conversation with Perry Scanlan

Dr. Scanlan was born premature weighing 2lbs 13oz. He was diagnosed with Little’s disease, specifically spastic diplegia, a condition affecting his lower legs and hips. He is chair of the Department of Allied Health Sciences at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He is a professor with tenure and the program director of the Medical Laboratory Science and Phlebotomy Programs.

2023 Dynamic Discussion

Dynamic Discussion with Thomas Burke

Professionals with disabilities must make choices based on the realities of their own constraints, as well as societal restrictions and even discrimination. Thomas will discuss his personal experience of disability and how it shaped his career arc from a microbiologist to a specialized food safety expert. He will focus on how he used models of disability to form his identity as a person with a disability and take decisive actions that maximized his career goals in the life sciences. Themes will include disability theory, disability within DEI initiatives, and reasonable accommodation.

2022-23 Book Club

Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling.

Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn’t fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life.

Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different story.

2021-22 PRISM Events

2022 Dynamic Discussion: The ABCs of DEI: Advocacy from the Bench to C-suite with Debra BenAvram

Link to Recording

Join the leaders of the ASCLS Diversity Advocacy Council (DAC) for a discussion with AABB Chief Executive Officer Debra BenAvram, FASAE, CAE.

2021-22 Book Discussions

Demanding More: Why Diversity and Inclusion Don’t Happen and What You Can Do About It, by Sheree Atcheson

2022 Candid Conversations: Scott Aikey

Link to Recording

Kyle Riding, ASCLS Secretary-Treasurer, will interview ASCLS Past President Scott Aikey. Scott is an inspirational leader and openly gay man. During his time in ASCLS and the clinical laboratory profession Scott witnessed a multitude of changes in how members of the LGBTQ+ community were seen and cared for by others. His courage, compassion, and grace towards everyone he encounters has helped pave the way for a more inclusive organization that does not require someone to hide their true selves from their colleagues.

2021 PRISM Events

2021 Book Club Discussions

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson

2021 Health Disparities and Cultural Humility with Dr. Robin L. Eubanks

Dr. Robin L. Eubanks, associate professor at Rutgers University Biomedical and Health Sciences – School of Health Professions in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, an interactive discussion on cultural humility and health disparities.

2021 Candid Conversations: Glenda Price

Cheryl Caskey, past president of ASCLS, interviewed Glenda Price, first African American president of ASCLS. Glenda was considered a very inspiring mentor and leader to many. She was often the first African American or first women (and sometimes both) to hold a variety of leadership positions throughout ASCLS and academia. Some who knew her would say she was a trailblazer who spoke quietly, with honesty and measured words and tones.