MLPAO - The Dish

The MLPAO is so excited to welcome Ances Hercules to the team as our new Director, Professional Services. Ances is a passionate cMLA/T^MLPAO with a specialization in paediatric patient care. Ances will be providing oversight of the MLPAO’s programs to ensure that a member centered approach is embedded in all aspects of our association services. She will bring her strong constellation of experience as an MLA/T, politician, and educator to the MLPAO’s certification, publication, promotions, and advocacy initiatives.

CEO Michelle Hoad speaks to Jeff Sammut SXM Canada Talks about the importance of med lab professions during this pandemic.

The team fighting COVID-19 is a big one, but medical laboratory professionals are at the epicenter: conducting tests and confirming new cases. In this special episode of The Dish, MLPAO CEO Michelle Hoad speaks with Christine Bruce, Administrative Director for the Microbiology Laboratory at UHN and Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, ON about the lab's role in fighting the outbreak, what happens after a sample is taken from a patient, precautions in the lab, and shortages of lab staff. If you're a medical laboratory professional, share this with your networks to raise awareness about your work to diagnose and track COVID-19. #medlabthx #ONlabforthepeople

Episode 6 marks our final episode of the series: we speak with Deanne Cianfagna and Mary Louise Petersen, two MLTs working on the front lines at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. Cianfagna and Petersen speak with us about the shortage: first warning signs, training under stress, automation and amalgamation, and impact for MLTs as individuals and professionals.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, medical laboratory professionals working on the ground, and many more stories from the shortage.

Our first Dish of the new year is with Bradley Hann, Program Coordinator and Educator at Cambrian College in Sudbury. If you look at a map of all the MLT schools in Ontario, Cambrian is a lone school serving all of Ontario’s North. Hann speaks with us about the implications of this for recruiting, clinical placements, rural and remote laboratories, and education as the shortage increases across the province.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, MLTs and MLA/Ts working on the ground, and many more stories from the frontlines of the shortage.

December's Dish is with Sarah James, a Pathologists' Assistant who has since 2017 been the Quality Manager for a partnership of 10 labs separated by 700 km in Northern Ontario, 2 of which are fully Point of Care Testing. James speaks to us about patterns she's noticing across the labs she works in and how the shortages are impacting quality management.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, MLTs and MLA/Ts working on the ground, and many more stories from the frontlines of the shortage.

We speak with EORLA's Greg Doiron, VP Operations and Manager and Anas Gharra, Laboratory Manager about patterns in their laboratory networks, what it means to work in a rural lab, and systems changes that would shift learning and clinical placements to address the crisis.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, MLTs and MLA/Ts working on the ground, and many more stories from the frontlines of the shortage.

October's Dish is with Sault Area Hospital's Manda Rivers, Laboratory Services Manager and Betty Currie, Technical Supervisor. They spoke with us about recruitment challenges in Northern Ontario, impacts of shortages in their lab, and possible ways to move forward.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, MLTs and MLA/Ts working on the ground, and many more stories from the frontlines of the shortage.

This episode has a few small edits and replaces the one uploaded on October 9.

This first Dish is with Michelle Hoad, the MLPAO’s CEO. She has been working closely with focus groups of MLTs and MLA/Ts, laboratory directors, educational institutions, consultants, and Queen’s Park to define the shortage and come up with possible solutions.

This season we are focusing on an issue which impacts all of us here in Ontario: an impending medical laboratory staffing crisis. We’ll hear from small laboratories in rural and remote areas, lab managers preparing for shifting workforces, advocacy groups approaching the province to address the crisis, MLTs and MLA/Ts working on the ground, and many more stories from the frontlines of the shortage.