With ASCP's Help, AMA Retains Laboratory Personnel Salary Equity Policy

Despite being included in a report of recommended policy rescissions, the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates (HOD) recently opted to keep its laboratory personnel salary equity policy. 

ASCP members Harold C. Sullivan, MD, FASCP, and Jennifer Stall, MD, FASCP, both members of ASCP’s Young Physicians Section and ASCP Delegates to the AMA Pathology Section Council (PSC), found the proposed rescission and insisted that the policy be retained. The entire PSC banned together in support the policy and the AMA HOD subsequently agreed.  

PSC representatives argued that given the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the increased need for laboratory testing underscores the need for highly skilled laboratory personnel who can develop and perform these tests that are critical to maintaining equitable access to timely, accurate lab results needed both by medical care teams and our patients. 

H-260.978, “Salary Equity for Laboratory Personnel,” was the only policy slated for elimination that was kept by the AMA HOD. The policy is as follows: "It is the policy of the AMA to promote adequate compensation for medical technologists, cytotechnologists and other medical laboratory personnel and to promote increased funding for their educational programs."