Hello everyone and welcome back!
If you’re as “plugged in” to the pathology and laboratory medicine community as I am, then you’ve been absolutely swimming in the explosion of new content and novel delivery this past year alone! A lot of it is a result of our unfortunate pandemic circumstance, but the pathology media-train has been gaining speed for quite a while now. Whether you’re a podcast addict, an enthusiastic virtual annual meeting participant (which is still open!), or if you’ve spent way too much time on Path Twitter, I’m right there with you!
I’ve talked here before about the power and impact of social media in our community, and I could drone on and on about its impressive potential and warn you about pitfalls, give you tips, or just celebrate success stories. But that’s boring. You may or may not have a social media presence, in which case I’d either be pandering to the choir, or putting you sound asleep. Well, I didn’t match into anesthesia, so let me give you the readers’ (tweeters’?) digest. ASCP has (yet again) taken a huge stride in making a presence in today’s increasingly digital age. Catalyzed by many things—pandemic included—many of the projects I have heard about among ASCP colleagues have started to magically materialize; enter the podcast. Among podcast media, ASCP’s Inside the Lab absolutely nails the archetype of what good podcasting is today! It’s a wonderfully curated series, highlighting super relevant topics, and is hosted by a fantastic team. But that’s not all! (wait, this sounds like a commercial, I’m drafting an email about promotional royalties right now…) Kidding. Sort of. Along with the topics, discussions, and guest panelists in the 7 episodes thus far, you can get continuing education credits!
Let me stop there. For emphasis. Imagine you’re driving to work. Sipping your coffee, sitting through traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway (to those not in Chicago, we name them—we can talk more about this later). You suddenly remember you need CME/CMLE credits for your continuing ed maintenance. Great, you’ll just go hunting online for some boring QA/QC module about something somewhat related to your interests. Or… you could pop in those air pods and turn this podcast on for 1 AMA PRA credit a piece! Leave the murder mystery podcast for the drive home and spend the morning Inside the Lab! But I promised the readers’ digest, right? The following are highlights from a few of the currently available episodes for your listening and CE registering pleasure…
Hosted by Dr. Danny Milner (ASCP Chief Medical Officer and Global Health Champion), Dr. Lotte Mulder (ASCP Leadership and Empowerment extraordinaire), and Lablogatory’s very own Kelly Swails (digital managing editor in publications); the podcast has featured numerous amazing guests and topics ranging from testing logistics and interprofessional collaboration, to burnout and (obviously) COVID.
Episode 1: Disparities in COVID Cases Among Minorities
The inaugural episode featured Dr. Von Samedi (Associate Professor of Pathology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine), Dr. Valerie Fitzhugh (Associate Professor/Interim Chair of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Rutgers), and ASCP Social Media teammate Aaron Odegard (Infectious Disease MLS at Baptist Health Jacksonville). The inaugural topic (not a softball by any measure): how Black, Latinx, and minorities have suffered the brunt of COVID worse than other demographics. They discussed how COVID, at large, has uncovered swaths of long-standing, problematic disparities, and failures of our healthcare system. I gave a lecture on this topic when I was in New York as part of a CDC-funded, public health training seminar back in April of this (super long) year and things haven’t gotten any better—in fact from April to August when this episode aired, cases absolutely skyrocketed, especially in minority populations. The discussion’s bottom line: our community stands at a crossroads of education and delivery of results to both change the paradigm and improve the system. Good stuff. Listen here.
Episode 3: Online Teaching and Learning in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
This cutting-edge episode featured our hosts talking to Dr. Sara Wobker (Assistant Professor in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill), Dr. Natalie Banet (Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown University), and Dr. Richard Davis (Regional Director of Microbiology for Providence Health Care in WA). The topic: how the pandemic has shunted all educational efforts into zoom meetings, virtual conferences, and online classes. Maybe this was happening already? The panelists talked about the old guard of education and the new way online learning has provided dynamic, flexible options for various students of all learning styles. Limitations, however, are clear when addressing pathology education—it’s not so easy to go virtual overnight and you can see the growing pains in every laboratory department. When you try to deliver old lessons across new platforms, things don’t work. So, in order to maintain relevance, engagement, and success educators must take into consideration different types of students, social determinants of learning, cultural backgrounds, accessibility, and inclusion for all. Highly relevant today. Listen here.
Episode 6: Pathology Research and Publication
Finally, I’ll end with a more recent episode. This one featured a panel that included (among their many other academic and clinical roles) Dr. Steven Kroft (Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology), Dr. Roger Bertholf (Editor-in-Chief of Laboratory Medicine), and Dr. Sanjay Mukhopadyay (Associate Editor of the American Journal of Clinical Pathology). The topic for these well-published leaders in our field: how important it is to maintain a scientific standard, and how to get your paper published—yes you! They all talked about peer review, editing, submitting, and being able to tell whether paper’s are “good.” A seemingly subjective measure, but apropos of the year we’ve had which was filled with so many “bad” pieces of scientific literature. The benefits and limitations of peer-review are something we all have come to scrutinize as the digital age puts out clinical content ad nauseum on our social media feeds. But they all assert that one thing should be preserved as the future of scientific publication unfolds: the ability to create a standard by which professional societies, and medical subgroups and communities, collect and assess the science behind our work with purpose, accuracy, efficacy, and efficiency. It behooves editors as well as writers to enter a process that, ultimately, aims to improve the system as a whole—for the benefit of patients everywhere. Exactly how we are #StrongerTogether. Check it out here.
Check out these and the rest of the available episodes at www.ascp.org/insidethelab, Apple’s app store, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to podcasts!
Thanks for reading, now go listen!
See you next time!
–Constantine E. Kanakis MD, MSc, MLS(ASCP)CM is a first-year resident physician in the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Department at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago with interests in hematopathology, transfusion medicine, bioethics, public health, and graphic medicine. He is a certified CAP inspector, holds an ASCP LMU certificate, and xxx. He was named on the 2017 ASCP Forty Under 40 list, The Pathologist magazine’s 2020 Power List and serves on ASCP’s Commission for Continuing Professional Development, Social Media Committee, and Patient Champions Advisory Board. He was featured in several online forums during the peak of the COVID pandemic discussing laboratory-related testing considerations, delivered a TEDx talk called “Unrecognizable Medicine,” and sits on the Auxiliary Board of the American Red Cross in Illinois. Dr. Kanakis is active on social media; follow him at @CEKanakisMD.
Lablogatory 