CAPcasts

The current state of health care is mandating consolidation and integration of practices and laboratories. The scope and rapid pace of these changes, particularly amidst the COVID pandemic, is unsettling and disruptive to staff and can lead to unusually large numbers of resignations. It’s unlikely this will slow down in the near future, and therefore, it’s important for pathologists who will lead and be part of these changes to be cognizant of the impact of change and how they might mitigate and facilitate the process, explains Moira Larsen, MD, FCAP, in this CAPcast. Dr. Larsen will be leading a session on navigating change at the Pathologists Leadership Summit, which will be held virtually May 1-4, 2021.

Surveys have shown hesitancy among African Americans to take the COVID vaccine, much to the concern of physician and public health experts, who emphasize the perils posed by immunizations gaps in certain populations to overall public health. But it’s important to understand this hesitancy, explains Valerie Fitzhugh, MD, FCAP, who is Associate Professor and Chair of Pathology at both the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Submitting quantitative PT results manually can be time consuming, can drain laboratory resources, and is subject to human error. CAP customers can now simplify this process by using direct transmission. In this CAPcast interview, Tim Aukerman, Corporate Quality Assessment Manager at Quest Diagnostics, discusses his experience with directly transmitting PT results to the CAP via the Data Innovations Instrument Manager. Tim has oversight of quality initiatives—including PT—across Quest Diagnostics and led the switch to using direct transmission across more than 100 Quest regional and rapid response labs.

In this CAPcast interview, Tim Aukerman, Corporate Quality Assessment Manager at Quest Diagnostics, discusses his experience with direct transmission of PT results. Tim has oversight of quality initiatives including PT across Quest and has overseen the implementation and use of direct transmission across multiple Quest Labs.

There are several methods for workup of urinary tract infections or UTIs and utilizing the appropriate test(s) on the appropriate patients can allow for prompt and appropriate treatment and symptom relief, as well as reduce unnecessary testing and unnecessary treatment with antimicrobials, explains Dr. Stacy Beal, in this CAPcast. Dr. Beal, a pathologist at UF Health in Gainesville, Florida and member of the CAP's Quality Practices Committee, has helped to develop a new CAP testing module focused on UTIs, which can now be found on CAP.org: https://capatholo.gy/38dpl3L.

Pathologists have long been at the forefront of biobanking practices, assuring that biospecimens from patients are properly collected and processed for diagnostic procedures. During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, pathologists and laboratory technicians have had to develop and implement new biosafety procedures to protect themselves and patients and they are also often involved in research into new therapies, explains Dr. Jim Vaught, editor-in-chief of the journal Biopreservation and Biobanking. In this CAPcast, Dr. Vaught discusses the special challenges involved in developing protocols to work with biospecimens collected from patients during an infectious disease emergency, as well as the role that biobanks play in the development of COVID vaccines and therapies.

More resources related to biobanking and biorepositories can be found on CAP.org under the Biorepository Accreditation Program: https://capatholo.gy/3rzSPkg.

About 85% of board-certified pathologists are reporting that the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted their practices, according to a recent CAP survey: https://capatholo.gy/2HmFTLZ.

In this CAPcast interview, Dr. Thomas Wheeler discusses the survey’s findings, which confirm the pandemic’s ongoing adverse effects on pathologists as the United States has relied on COVID-19 testing throughout this national crisis. Dr. Wheeler is chair of the CAP’s Policy Roundtable Steering Committee.

As more antigen testing methods become available in the market, the laboratory remains at the center of testing and ensuring accurate results for optimal patient care. Introducing a new antigen proficiency testing program for SARS-CoV-2 virus to complement existing programs for molecular and serology PT, the CAP now offers laboratories a complete suite of PT and quality improvement programs for all COVID-19-related testing.

In this CAPcast, Dr. Daniel Rhoads, Section Head of Microbiology at the Cleveland Clinic and member of the CAP’s Microbiology Committee, speaks with us about antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 and the new proficiency testing program that the CAP offers its customers.

You can order the new antigen proficiency testing program today at CAP.org: https://capatholo.gy/2FBbSal. The program code is COVAG. For more information about specifications of and enrollment in the CAP’s COVID-19-related proficiency testing programs for antigen, molecular, or serology testing, please visit the COVID-19 page on the CAP’s web site for the latest information and resources, including those for proficiency testing. The CAP’s COVID-19 web page offers links to helpful tools and resources to help you clarify rules and compliance as you implement testing in your laboratory.

Classification of endometrial tumors based strictly on morphology can be challenging due to overlapping histologic features and often requires the assistance of ancillary testing. Recently proposed algorithms, such as the ProMisE Proactive Molecular Risk Classifier for Endometrial Cancer, coupled with TCGA data, aim to further subclassify endometrial carcinomas into prognostically significant groups based on molecular genetics, explains Dr. Laura Tafe in this CAPcast interview. Dr. Tafe will be joining Dr. Jessica Dillon to teach a course on this topic at CAP20 this year, which will be held virtually on Oct. 10-14.

CAP20 will be held virtually this year from Oct. 10-14 (www.capannualmeeting.org/). Follow #cap20virtual on social for the latest on the event.

In the current pandemic, the microbiology laboratory plays a central role in testing. To meet the demand for SARS-CoV-2 molecular testing, many laboratories have expanded testing capacity by adding multiple molecular instruments. However, this has left laboratories with questions regarding proficiency testing (PT) requirements for these additional instruments, as two CAP members, Dr. Bobbi Pritt and Dr. Lauren Pearson, explain in this CAPcast interview. Dr. Pritt is the Chair of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory and a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She currently serves as chair of the CAP Microbiology Committee. Dr. Pearson is Assistant Professor of Pathology at the University of Utah and Laboratory Director of University of Utah Health Sciences Center Clinical Laboratories. She serves as chair of the CAP Instrumentation Committee.

If your laboratory could benefit from the Quality Cross Check program discussed in this interview, more information is available on the CAP web site. Go to cap.org and click on the “SHOP” link in the upper right corner to visit our online store. The program code is COV2Q. Interested participants can enroll for 2020 participation; the shipping date will be October 26. For 2021 enrollment, interested laboratories can add this program to their 2021 PT order renewal. For description: https://capatholo.gy/2FBbSal.

Many pathologists in training have gathered debt and are managing life on salaries that are going to adjust significantly as they exit training and move into practice. However, pathologists, like all doctors, need to be prepared to handle their finances as they train and exit into their jobs whether it’s to pay off debt or plan for retirement or both, explains Dr. James Dahle in this CAPcast interview. Dr. Dahle, an emergency room physician, is the author of the book, “The White Coat Investor: A Doctor's Guide To Personal Finance And Investing,” as well as The White Coat Investor podcast and blog. He will be speaking at this year’s Fall Residents Forum Meeting on Oct. 10, which will be held virtually this year.