- This is Lab Medicine Rounds, a curated podcast
for physicians, laboratory professionals and students.
I'm your host, Justin Kreuter,
a transfusion medicine pathologist
and assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine
and Pathology at Mayo Clinic.
This episode, we're really kind
of continuing this celebration
of celebrating the laboratory.
And so I wonder if we could kind of get into this
by kicking off with, you know, from your perspective,
why is it important to highlight the presence
of the laboratory in current medical practice?
Dr. Hsi: I mean, it's always a good time to sort of remind people
that the laboratory, you know, is, is there to provide,
you know, services for our patients.
I think the number bandied about that, you know, 70% of all,
you know, medical information comes from the laboratory.
And so, you know, we have a major role in providing data,
actionable information to our clinical colleagues
to make patient care and treatment decisions.
And so with such an important role, it doesn't help,
you know, hurt to get in front of people
and raise that awareness again, that we,
we are a part of the care team.
- I mean, when you say it's providing 70%
of the information, that's pretty substantial,
but then also to talk about, it's a reminder, I guess it's,
it's easy to kind of be always counted on
to be providing these results in a timely fashion.
- Oh, certainly. And I think, you know, I, well,
COVID was a huge example of getting lab front and center,
and it certainly raised awareness.
And at other institutions I've been, you know, the awareness
that, you know, at some point in time,
the laboratory touches pretty much every single
patient in their journey.
And there's not a lot of specialties
that can say that, right?
So one of my colleagues here says, you know,
we are involved in healthcare from cradle to grave,
and that actually is to some degree true.
- And so for, for the listener
who maybe hasn't thought about the role
of the laboratory in their practice,
what would be your advice for how to kind of approach
building that bridge maybe more
explicitly in their practice?
I think maybe some clinician listeners may not
understand where to start.
- Yeah. I would say, you know, please reach out, contact us.
We don't bite.
We love, in fact, I'm part of our, you know,
pathologists oftentimes are introverted
and, you know, we need to be brought up,
but we are always happy to consult
and, you know, lend our expertise.
You know, we become integral parts of the care team.
I think that's one area that we, as a field,
our next big push is
to become a little more integrated and front
and center in the care team.
You know, having pathologists get out
and speak to patients is another avenue
that is really satisfying
because patients are also curious about laboratory testing
and their particular results.
And so that's another, you know, way
that pathologists may not have not traditionally been
involved in part of the care team.
But that's certainly was a very fulfilling exercise for me.
Other pathologists actually are involved with that.
Transfusion medicine people deal with, you know,
more directly with patients and things like that.
So I think, you know, as we as a field develop,
you know, our next frontier is really
to get a little more front and center in the care teams.
- Where is the laboratory headed?
If you could elaborate a little bit for us
- As, as we move forward in information.
'cause I think at the end of the day, yes,
we're doing all these testing, our laboratories are
generating, like we said, you know, a large chunk
of the information being used to treat patients.
But at the end of the day, it's information, right?
And so how do we leverage that information in new ways
to add to, you know, the, the diagnostic decisions?
- What do you think is, might be our biggest challenge
with that step forward into more of those
that clinic domain?
- Yeah. Well I think it's, you know, part of it is,
you know, workforce
and kind of like keeping people interested in
going into the field.
You and I both know, it's getting harder
and harder to find people that get into the field
because, you know, there's so many things people could be doing
and how do we make sure that people understand there's this
super interesting career path that is contributing to health
of the population,
and you know, how do we keep those people interested?
And then how do we continue to develop the skill sets
that we need in terms of, you know,
information management
and computational pathology, which is kind
of the new buzzword, right?
And build those skill sets into the training program so
that we can continue to grow as a specialty.
I think those are things that we will be trying
to figure out over the next coming, you know, decade.
- You know, why is it important from your perspective for us
to look at our past when planning for our future?
Dr. Hanson: That's a great question.
I think that one of the first things that comes
to mind is it's an opportunity to re-look at
and validate what our principles are.
Too often we just keep going down the path.
We're busy, you know, we do today, you go to today's list
and you do today's list
and you worry about yesterday's things you didn't get done.
And we don't take the time to really sit back
and reflect on what's my vision?
What are my principles, am I upholding those?
Are they still valid? Do they still work for us?
How can I incorporate them more into what we do?
And I think by looking back, you can really go,
have I been consistent over time?
Have we been consistent over time
with why we do what we do?
And I think that's really something we don't spend a lot
of time thinking about,
but that really should drive what we do.
It certainly should drive our decision making
and our planning and our prioritization of things.
- How do you see these aspects that you're celebrating,
informing kind of the future, you know, kind
of the future projections as success in our, in our field?
- I think we really, we need to move beyond some
of our historical approaches to things
and really kind of grab that discipline of change
and really drive it in the laboratory
and challenge how we do things.
- How do we shift from service orientation
to really being colleagues, you know, equals with our other,
you know, healthcare professionals.
That's really going to, one, help us to be able to advocate
for best laboratory practice
to support the clinical practice,
but also certainly make us more visible as well.
- We need to always think of ourselves that we are every bit
as involved with and responsible for
and taking care of our patients.
And I think that's a, that's an important mindset.
A lot of these things are the mindsets I think that we need
to really work on as a, as a profession.
- What do you wish for the future
of laboratory medicine and pathology?
Jane Hermansen: I think that as we
as professionals become more removed from the patient
bedside, we don't have that,
that insight into the patient.
We don't have the empathy of seeing what
that patient is going through.
So going forward, looking to the future, I hope that we
as professionals never lose touch
with the reason we're in laboratory medicine
in the first place.
To me, it really made all the difference to have
that patient aspect and it has really an informed
and truly created the professional that I am today
because I did have that in the trenches experience.
And without it, I don't think that I'd be,
as effective as I am today.
So that's one piece - to not let go of the the patient piece.
And if you have an opportunity
to be in a more generalist position
and then tie the picture of the diagnostics back to
that patient, it actually is going
to help you feel like you're adding more value.
My hope for the future of our industry
and our profession as laboratory professionals, that we are able
to bring more people in, advocate for the profession,
bring more people in to our programs so
that they can actually bring that same joy to the work
that we do every day.
And then it's not just about the profession,
it really comes down to the fact that we are there
for the patients and the work that we do helps provide
and improve great patient care, improving the outcomes,
and they can't do it without laboratory
medicine and pathology.
- To all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today.
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