ADVANCE Outlook: Lab Professionals : Technology, Professionalism

Bridging the Gap

Michael Jones — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:00:00 GMT

Teamwork and technology are quickly replacing the concept of the one-man show. A recent news briefing noted on the major differences between Baby Boomer Physicians and even the doctors of Generation “X” versus the new hires of Generation “Y,” but who...(read more)

Can Social Media Change Healthcare IT Landscape?

Lynn — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:37:00 GMT

According to Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, it can. That was his message at the recent HIMSS conference in Las Vegas, NV. “The main critique of Twitter initially was that it wasn’t useful,” he told attendees. He then shared numerous stories of how...(read more)

ASCLS Session: Climbing the Career Ladder

Matthew T. Patton — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 03:32:00 GMT

Guest post by Karen Appold ATLANTA -- During the Wednesday afternoon session, “Career Options for the Medical Laboratory Scientist,” four laboratorians summarized their career paths, some of which deviated from the traditional laboratory setting. They...(read more)

Help Us Plan Our 2012 Calendar

Matthew T. Patton — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:47:00 GMT

It is hard to believe that nearly half of the year 2011 has come and gone. Summer is just days away. Starting this month, the ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals team is already looking at our calendars with our eyes on 2012. As we are doing...(read more)

Reply to All

Amanda Koehler — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:01:00 GMT

I've blogged about the pitfalls of e-mail before . But now I want to discuss an e-mail feature that can be quite dangerous, especially in a work setting: the "reply to all" button. We can all probably think of a time when we abused the "reply to all"...(read more)

When Not to E-mail

Amanda Koehler — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

I can't remember a time without e-mail. Maybe that's because I got my first e-mail address at age 12. Nevertheless, e-mail has changed the way we communicate. It's made communication faster and easier. It also saves time: instead of calling all three...(read more)

What Will the Future Bring?

Kerri Penno — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:14:00 GMT

As I was browsing some of the other ADVANCE blogs, I was struck by the commonality of themes between healthcare professions. It seems the different disciplines face many of the same issues (e.g., staffing problems, budget crunches, boosting productivity and morale), and many of the same fears (e.g., making an error that harms a patient, the uncertain direction of the profession).

Take the health information technology field, for example. This breed of "MTs" transcribes dictated and recorded notes from physicians. As new advances produce equipment that essentially performs the same duty, MTs wonder if they will someday be replaced by technology.

The laboratory field is not immune from these thoughts. With innovations like the "Swish and Spit" test-a solution that when gargled, has the potential to diagnose cancer-and a growing number of do-it-yourself at home diagnostics, is anyone starting to wonder about the fate of the clinical laboratory scientist?

If in the future, all blood is universal, cervical cancer is wiped out, and cancer diagnoses are made over a capful of mouthwash in a morning routine, where does that leave the bloodbankers, cytologists and pathologists?

Do I think the role of the laboratorian will be usurped by machines, vaccines and direct-access testing? No. But I do think roles will change, or at least shift slightly. Whether that means more focus on researching new tests, monitoring and personalizing treatments, or educating patients and physicians about test values is yet to be seen. What do you think the future will bring?

At Least I'm Not Digging Ditches

Matthew T. Patton — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:25:00 GMT

More than once recently I have felt like my head is going to pop off. We've been doing so many things here at ADVANCE at a frenetic pace. We decided to redesign our entire Web site (including adding this blog) and go to full color in print (coupled with a major redesign). All at the exact same time. Although we're absolutely thrilled with the results (and hope you are, too), we were swamped around here to say the least.

I had a conversation with a friend in the art department that went like this:

Jen: "Hey, how's it going?"

Me: "You have no idea how busy we've been lately."

Jen: "Really? What's going on?"

Me: "Well, headshots alone have been a ton of work. We ask people for a headshot. They tell us they can get one in a few days. We follow up to ask for the headshot again. They send it. It's extremely tiny, and the DPI (that's dots per inch for the layperson) won't work for print. Then they say their daughter can probably take one with a digital camera. Then they have difficulty e-mailing it (it crashed their system). When we finally do get it, it's in the wrong format or I can't open it. Then I have to e-mail them again to tell them the newest version's not going to work either. Finally, we get the useable headshot, but it has involved literally 25 e-mails back-and-forth just to get it. Multiply that by the 20-something headshots we printed in our last issue, and it's literally 2 days of work ... just on headshots alone!"

Jen: "Ummm ... Wow. At least you're not digging ditches."

Needless to say, I like including headshots in the magazine (it's a little obsession of mine, I fully admit). (Check out the Oct. 22 issue. I think I counted more than 25). I think people like seeing of the folks who contribute. But like everything else, it requires a lot of work and a lot of time. I always joke that we should ask all 65,000 readers of the magazine to e-mail us a useable, 300-plus DPI headshot so we have a bank of headshots to use. But that's an editor's pipe dream.