ASCP Day of Service Illuminates ‘Hidden Gems’ — Careers in the Laboratory

When ASCP announced plans to host a Day of Service in conjunction with the 2025 Lab Week, Jeannie Guglielmo, MS, MAT, MLS(ASCP)^CM, jumped into action and started planning. 

 
As chair and clinical associate professor in the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences in the School of Health Professions at Stony Brook University in New York, Ms. Guglielmo is committed to raising the visibility of the clinical laboratory. 

She set up a table in the corridor of the health system where she works and displayed four petri dishes each taped with different images of microbiology plates with organisms. Then she told passersby about the “patients” – named Daphne, Velma, Scooby-Doo, and Fred, in keeping with ASCP’s Medical Mysteries theme for Lab Week. Each patient had different symptoms. She told of the laboratory diagnostic test results and offered several possible conditions the patients might have. The passersby tried to determine the correct diagnosis for each patient. 

“I have a passion to let people know about this amazing career path,” she says. “We have a shortage of people going into the field. I like to present our field as a hidden gem because not everyone knows about it.”  

A longtime ASCP Career Ambassador, Ms. Guglielmo is well versed at giving career presentations to young people and knowing how to pique their interests in the various laboratory careers.  

“I have had the privilege of having people tell me they would not have gone into the profession had they not met me. ASCP has provided a vehicle for me to do that.” 

Another ASCP Career Ambassador, LaTerra Slate, PBT(ASCP)^CM, MLT(ASCP)^CM, of Columbus, Ohio, is equally dedicated to reaching out to cultivate the next generation of laboratory professions. For ASCP’s Day of Service, she hosted a Career Information and Discussion Day designed for early-career healthcare professionals, including individuals from nursing, radiology, clinical research, esthetics, and allied health. Many were unfamiliar with the range of laboratory careers available. 

Her goal was to promote awareness of laboratory medicine as a viable and meaningful career path. “We explored roles such as phlebotomy, MLT/MLS, blood banking, diagnostic science, and research-based lab work,” says Ms. Slate, who is an instructor at Intelvio, as a DBA phlebotomy training specialist and founder of E4RTH Allied Health & Wellness LLC, which provides integrative, laboratory-based wellness services. 

Highlights of her outreach included: 

• A hands-on hematology activity where participants identified normal and abnormal RBC morphology, created custom cells using a hematology drawer kit, and observed a demonstration of blood bank cross-matching; and,  

• A group discussion on the role of phlebotomists as frontline professionals in lab quality, the hidden but essential contributions of laboratory professionals, and she shared her personal journey and outreach as an ASCP Career Ambassador.