No one wants to be short-staffed. Cytology programs across the country are either closing or shifting to a Master’s-only degree (to finally reflect our expanded scope of responsibilities), and during the pandemic, it seems there was a mass exodus of retiring baby-boomer cytologists. We’re in a crisis to say the least. As a prominent clinical rotation site, we have no shortage of cytology students. So much that whenever we’ve had an open position in the past, we were confident an eligible student would be able to fill our void. Over the past year, we’ve noticed that students had already secured jobs before they came to us for their clinical rotation. It wasn’t a problem until we realized that we were no longer immune to the nationwide staffing shortage. After one of our cytologists tragically passed away in November of 2022, we made do by working overtime. Before we were able to fill the empty position fifteen months later, another cytologist left to teach. Finally securing an amazing candidate with experience, we knew that we had students rotating through during the winter months, and things started looking up. We encouraged our first student to apply after being blown away by her already-fine-tuned her locator skills and hired her to start as soon as she graduates this summer. We were feeling assured that by the end of the summer (and my supervisor’s retirement), we would be fully staffed, fully trained, and ready to take on the world again. And then, another cytologist let us know she was moving to New England and her last day was five weeks from now. And just last week, another cytologist put in her notice. We’re down 4 cytologists in 15 months, the latter 3 within just 2 months. It’s the highest turnover our department has ever experienced, and our optimism was crushed. Fortunately, we do have more students rotating through this summer, but with 3 positions to fill before August, we’re treading water like our lives depend on it.
Sound familiar? I’m certain that the pervasive staffing shortage is plaguing medical laboratories all over the country. But how do we not let this impact our services? How do we continue to provide the same level of exemplary care while preventing burnout in our team? I’d like to share some lessons learned during our shortage from both a management and cytologist perspective, and I’m eager to hear if you have any you’d like to share from your own experiences.
Lesson #1 – Analyze Service Impact & Develop a Contingency Plan
Will the staffing shortage negatively impact turnaround time? With CLIA’s maximum screening limit of 100 slides in no less than an 8-hour day, a reduction in cytologists shifts the burden of the workload which can risk exceeding limits. Factoring in non-screening activities, such as performing Rapid Onsite Evaluation (ROSE) for FNA procedures, sending out tests for ancillary studies (ThyroSeq, Afirma, HPV, etc.), accessioning, scheduling, slide filing, cleaning biopsy carts, compiling statistics for QA, assisting in the cytoprep lab, maintaining continuing education, etc., it’s far too easy to exceed those limits. We pride ourselves on a one-day turnaround time. Our clinicians and patients expect it, and we refuse to sacrifice that feat. The most significant concern is the rising number of scheduled FNA procedures and not enough people to safely attend them all. We examined productivity and available time for FNAs given the number of cytologists present and daily case/slide workload. First, we looked at the number of slides that need to be screened for the day and divided it by the max mandated screening rate. Then, we counted the number of cases that need to be accessioned and the time involved. This process includes reconciling clinical history and histologic correlation, resolving the plethora of pre-analytical errors (please show us a perfect system for order entry). Considering the time spent on all other activities beyond accessioning and screening including assisting in the cytoprep laboratory, and what remains is the number of hours available for biopsies. We compare this to what has actually been scheduled for the day. Quite often, we are available for much less than what is requested and we must reallocate our resources. Postponing or reallocating out our prep assist duties, filing, and cart cleaning is an option with the cytoprep technicians also working overtime. If and when the prep techs are caught up on their work, they are able to clean carts for us. As for filing slides and paperwork, try to utilize your hospital’s resources, such as volunteers, who are incredibly valuable. Try to also share or reallocate statistics or other QA activities to reduce the burden on one employee while still maintaining operations. You could hire a temporary administrative assistant with a background in medical terminology to assist with accessioning as another option. The worst case scenario would be asking clinicians to “self-collect” FNAs in a balanced salt solution and sending it up to the lab to be processed. Our clinicians value our ROSE services, especially to confirm viability and to ensure we have sufficient material for ancillary studies such as molecular, IHC, and flow cytometry, and not being present would be an ethical dilemma for us all. To help mitigate this, we worked with the schedulers and clinicians across various departments to level out the biopsy schedule, and we postponed or reallocated non-screening activities to be able to handle the FNA workload to the best of our staffing level.
Lesson #2- Go LEAN
Now is a great time to go LEAN, if you haven’t already. And if you think you have, do it again. Analyze your lab for forms of waste. Are there non-value-added activities that are interfering with daily operations? Is your workflow optimized? How much of your cytologist’s time is spent waiting on biopsies? Waiting to call the cytologist to the procedure after the clinician has scrubbed in and marked the targeted lesion could save the cytologist 10-45 minutes of time. By reducing excess and unproductive biopsy wait time, the cytologist can be more productive within the laboratory. You could also reduce motion waste by having one cytologist attend multiple biopsies in the same department within a short time frame. For example, if an ultrasound-guided biopsy is scheduled for 10:15 AM and a CT-scan biopsy is scheduled for 11:00 AM, the same cytologist could attend both without having to return to the lab just to be called back down to radiology. Reducing excess employee movement between departments can also reduce potential care delays by having the cytologist present, moving with the nurses and proceduralist. Similar to the previous lesson on developing a contingency plan with reallocation of resources, how much of the cytologist’s talent is wasted on miscellaneous tasks that outside of the scope of high complexity testing, such as filing, scheduling, and cart cleaning? These are tasks that could be easily assigned to an administrative assistant or prep tech. And lastly, is the lab “over-prepping?” Many hospital laboratories only produce one liquid-based preparation (such as a ThinPrep slide) for morphology and a cell block for ancillary studies. If you are also making cytospins and smears or other additional preparations that offer a higher level of quality than is actually required to make the diagnosis, it could be considered waste. To reduce supply costs and time spent both prepping and interpreting excess material, monitor the laboratory for overproduction and overprocessing waste. This is especially helpful in reducing turnaround time and freeing up existing resources for other tasks.
Lesson #3 – Promote Mental Health & Self-Care
I especially thank my supervisor for this lesson because he and our cytopathology director have always maintained the family-comes-first and quality-of-life philosophies. Recognize that you and your cytologists are humans and not automated machines. Working in a short-staffed state with an abundance of overtime for more than a year can quickly manifest in burnout. You have to protect the gems that you still have. One thing I learned from my supervisor is to continuously seek feedback. How can we prevent burnout and protect both our mental and physical well-being? The main concern was quality of life, which was flourishing when we worked 4-10’s. While the overtime is not mandatory, we had to switch back to a 5-day work week to compensate for the staffing shortage. With that said, the remaining cytologists feel a sense of duty to our patients and therefore have extended their days to 9- to 10-hour days 5 days per week just to cover basic laboratory operations. We anticipate that once our March-start cytologist is fully trained to handle biopsies which run afterhours and our June-start cytologist is fully trained on accessioning, we can return to the 4-10 workweek. But for now, we maintain morale by knowing that the future is bright and we have 3 exceptionally strong senior techs remaining who are fully prepared to train any new hires. While management responsibilities have also shifted during a staffing shortage, a good leader must sharpen their intuition and emotional intelligence, checking in with their employees who are under extreme stress. Too often the manager forgets to check in with themselves while weathering a storm. Remember the airplane oxygen mask metaphor – you must care for yourself before you attempt to help others.Make sure your employees know that too. Patients and their specimens need us, but we cannot provide exceptional services unless we take care of ourselves first.
Lesson #4 – Communicate Intentions & Goals Early & Often
Communication- It’s a two-way street. Please, for everyone involved, consider giving MORE than the minimum required notice. For our department where we clearly do much more than just screening slides and attending FNAs, you must leave enough time to train others on how to handle the processes you own, such as send-out tests or statistics. It is crucial to give the remaining cytologists sufficient time to learn these processes and be able to ask questions while you’re still onsite. Communicating your intent to resign earlier than the minimum required time also enables management to shift their duties and either actively recruit or simply consider prospective candidates to help close the gap. Please also understand that indicating your intent to leave a laboratory does not mean that management will give up on you during your remaining tenure. If anything, leadership will ensure that you are able to accomplish any residual goals within the organization and help you prepare for the next stop on your journey. This principle applies to the entire duration of your career within the laboratory. At the beginning of your tenure, be open and honest about your short-term and long-term goals both career-wise and outside of the workplace so that management can help you customize a plan to achieve those aspirations. Should your goals or intentions change, be transparent. Pivoting is not a form of weakness. While it isn’t easy to brave a storm, especially as the effects of the shortage are exponentially more evident, it’s not only okay to seek help, but strongly encouraged. If you feel overwhelmed or on the verge of burnout, lean on your team members, communicate your concerns to your manager, and take time to ground yourself. Sometimes leaving a laboratory only reduces familiar burnout, and by starting over elsewhere, the unfamiliar may turn out to be more stressful, yet sometimes that new challenge is exactly what you needed. Just keep in mind that the storm will not last forever, and the laboratory sun will shine again.
-Taryn Waraksa-Deutsch, MS, SCT(ASCP)CM, CT(IAC), has worked as a cytotechnologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, since earning her master’s degree from Thomas Jefferson University in 2014. She is an ASCP board-certified Specialist in Cytotechnology with an additional certification by the International Academy of Cytology (IAC). She is also a 2020 ASCP 40 Under Forty Honoree.