In August, pathology resident Yen-Michael Hsu, MD, PhD, spent a week-long clinical rotation at Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, teaching lab professionals to use new assays to test for abnormal blood clotting. He also took blood samples donated by 30 healthy hospital employees to develop a hematologic profile of local Haitians. In the developing world, baselines are often taken from published reference ranges derived from unknown sources and are not specific to the local population. Read more

CMS Provides Pathologists Temporary Relief from Meaningful Use Penalties
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will shield pathologists, at least temporarily, from the Meaningful Use program’s noncompliance penalties that go into effect in 2015. The relief was provided as part of the agency’s Meaningful Use Stage Two Final Rule, released in late August at ASCP’s urging. The rule also provides protection for radiologists and anesthesiologists. Read more

ASCP Senior Manager of Customer Service Yvette Spriggs, MBA, CCSP, frequently receives calls from ASCP members, praising her staff for their thoughtfulness, patience, and assistance when they have a question or a problem to solve. Over the course of a year, ASCP’s Customer Service staff members field thousands of inquiries. To date, they have responded to 103,502 calls, live chats, and emails in 2012. The quality of their service is reflected in the response to member satisfaction surveys, which rate them at 8 on a scale of 10. Read more

The rapidly changing environment in laboratory medicine is a key factor that attracted Andrew Abdella, MLS(ASCP)^CM, to study medical laboratory science in college. “The field is growing at a fast rate, due to more research being done in diagnostic science,” he said. “Being in a field that is growing is fun. Being a chemist, I have really enjoyed working in a microbiology department and a blood bank. Read more