Volunteers the Lifeblood of ASCP’s Work to Improve Laboratory Medicine Around the World

A few years ago, Linda Cherepow, HT(ASCP)HTL, was in Uganda, setting up a histology laboratory in Kampala for Frank Hutch in Seattle, WA. “The roof literally had seven leaks where water dripped in. A thick layer of dust coated all the surfaces of the lab each day, the room temperature fluctuated between 17 and 30 degrees Celsius, and electrical outages were a weekly occurrence,” she recalls. Undaunted, she and a colleague worked tirelessly to troubleshoot each obstacle.

Being "on-the-ground” was an invaluable experience as it gave her an up-close view of the laboratory conditions that are typically experienced by colleagues in resource-limited countries. For that reason, sending volunteers in-country is far more effective than sending the in-country professionals to the U.S. for training.

Ms. Cherepow is among a corps of dedicated ASCP volunteer consultants who travel to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to train lab professionals and install new equipment in the labs. “Pathology and laboratory medicine are critical to the delivery of good quality health care worldwide,” she says. “By providing quality education and upgrading laboratory infrastructure in LMICs, ASCP and our volunteers are ensuring that people around the world have access to high-quality diagnostic care.”

In August, she traveled to Monrovia, Liberia, with a group from Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City, to assess space within the JFK Hospital for a pathology lab. Starting from scratch, she and Molly Lieber, project manager of Global Women’s Health at Mt. Sinai, designed four rooms to be the future Histology Laboratory. They had furniture designed for those rooms and are currently securing equipment to be shipped to Monrovia. Later this winter, Ms. Cherepow will return to Monrovia to set up the lab and provide instruction of histological techniques to the pathologist and laboratory staff.  

Last November, Ms. Cherepow and Rushin Lewis worked with ASCP and the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation to bring histology consumables from the U.S. and assess an area designated for a pathology lab within the Biamba Marie Dikembe Hospital in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. The pathology lab at this hospital will be up and running in 2019.

Of all the many different career experiences she’s had, Ms. Cherepow says her volunteer work with ASCP is, by far, among the most rewarding. “I feel like I’m really giving back to my profession,” she says. “While I was in Uganda, I trained Diana Basemera in the theory and practice of routine histology technique. After Diana completed the training, I left Uganda. Shortly thereafter, I received a message from Diana, saying that she was having problems with the most basic histology stain. I was on vacation in Africa and corresponded with her in how to troubleshoot the problem. When she finally sent me images that demonstrated successfully solving the problem (bad water source) and that she was able to fix the problem on her own, it made my time there all the more rewarding. The ultimate goal was to empower the laboratory staff with the tools to be successful in assisting in saving lives.”

Read the January 2019 Update for the ASCP Center for Global Health here.