Many hospitals test newborn babies for exposure to drugs of abuse. Although this sounds fairly straightforward, in practice it has been difficult to standardize testing protocols, let alone keep up with substance use trends. Compared with other areas of laboratory medicine, drug testing is also associated with unique social and legal ramifications, specimen collection processes, and result reporting decisions. In this interview, Dr. Gwen McMillin describes current academic perspectives on these issues, and where she sees the field heading ..read more

Within our current healthcare institutions, patients’ voices are often drowned out by the voices of providers, scientists, and industry. Andrea Downing’s life work is to fix this. As a BRCA1 cancer previvor and a patients’ rights activist, she was a spokesperson for one of the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court case that ultimately overturned gene patenting. Years later, while moderating an online patient support group, she discovered a major privacy vulnerability in Facebook, which led her into cybersecurity research. In this interview, she chronicles her journey and lays out her vision for ..read more

To most laboratorians, quality control is all about rules, metrics, and thresholds. To Dr. Fred Strathmann, on the other hand, it’s about gaining understanding of the underlying processes. In this interview, he shares examples of ways to think more deeply about measurements in order to drive organizational improvement ..read more

ARUP Laboratories was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as being among the country’s best workplaces for women. In this interview, ARUP’s president, Dr. Tracy George, explains how companies can create healthier models of work-life balance that support women (and men) in their personal and professional roles ..read more

The curricula of pathology and laboratory medicine training programs are heavily weighted toward technical and medical knowledge. In this interview, Dr. Wayne Chandler makes the case for more emphasis on leadership training, and he shares experiences from his 40-year clinical pathology career that illustrate the impact of people skills ..read more

The VALID Act currently being debated in Congress would increase the regulatory burden on clinical laboratories. In this interview, Dr. David Grenache from TriCore Laboratories and the University of New Mexico, together with Dr. Vince Stine from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, explain why VALID would slow down innovation while it raises costs, and why VALID appears to be designed to benefit a particular industry sector rather than patients ..read more

In 2022, laboratory professionals have more choices about whom to work for and whether to even continue working in laboratory medicine. In this discussion, Stephanie Whitehead, MBA, MPH, MLS(ASCP), executive director of pathology and laboratory services at University Health, San Antonio, describes what managers should be doing to recruit and retain exceptional staff ..read more

Despite their explicit healthcare mission, clinical laboratories often fall short when it comes to employee mental health. Laboratory managers know how to troubleshoot an assay or write a procedure, but how many know how to support an employee with crippling anxiety or de-escalate an emotional crisis? In this discussion, Brysen Bocchino, CMHC, NCC, ARUP’s newly hired mental health clinician, describes an innovative model for recognizing and addressing mental health needs in the workplace ..read more

How will lab testing be different a decade from now? Many answers are likely to be found in the numerous projects championed by the roughly 200 medical directors and scientists of the ARUP Institute for Clinical and Experimental Pathology. In this discussion, Dr. Adam Barker, chief scientific officer for ARUP Laboratories, explains how and why these R and D scientists are prioritizing the practical needs of patients and their providers ..read more

Improving physicians’ use of laboratory tests is not usually a problem of motivation. They’re already motivated to deliver high-quality care to their patients. More often, it’s about choice architecture, i.e., making sure that correct choices are easier to make than incorrect ones. In this discussion, Dr. Valerie Vaughn explains the science behind nudging and choice architecture. She also explains how her own research convinced her that improving the use of diagnostic tests is often the key to improving therapeutic outcomes ..read more