You Are the Expert, Part I
Having recently attended COLA's Symposium for Clinical Laboratories in Orlando, Florida, I reflected on how valuable the symposium was for "launching" my consultant career.
Attendance at the symposium was actually in support of my current career as the laboratory coordinator of a COLA accredited lab. Staying current on COLA and CLIA regulations can be made fun and easy with regular attendance at one of the two annual COLA symposiums. While at the Symposium, I took advantage of the situation and spent some time networking and learning from the experts about the consulting business and becoming a consultant.
Along this line, I attended a session that was presented by an independent consultant. He opened by thanking all of us for attending and stating, “You are the expert.” Well, I turned around and surveyed the room to see whose arrival I had missed, but there was no one behind me (I, of course, was in my usual back row classroom seat). He was talking to me—"me" being representative of each person in the room.
About this time I noticed that I was levitating slightly off of the chair and my head felt a little funny as it swelled slightly. I wondered what he thought my area of expertise might be. Before I could jump out of my seat and ask him this all important question, my balloon-shaped head was deflated and I came crashing back down in my chair. He proceeded to tell us that we should know what we know and know what we don’t know. I wondered what he could possibly mean by that. He just told me that I am the expert and he has the nerve to tell me there are things I don’t know!
I, however, got the point and you should, too. These statements should serve as basic premises for not only setting up a consulting business, but also for performing your jobs on a daily basis.
- You are the expert.
- Know what you know.
- Know what you don't know.
You are the expert. This is why we are managers, coordinators, administrators, supervisors, lead techs or whatever other title with which we are adorned. Our area of expertise is what earned us this spot in the food chain. This does not, however, label us as an expert in all areas of the laboratory. Trying to be something that we are not sets us up for disappointment, failure and, worst of all, litigation. So, as I continued to listen to the presentation, I began to prepare a list of items that fall in my area of expertise. These items will be my scope of practice as I proceed with the development of my consulting business. If, you, like me, are aspiring to be a consultant, please establish your scope of practice early on.
To be continued...