LabMind

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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&D scientists are prioritizing the practical needs of patients and their providers.

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.