Medical Laboratory Professionals Week (aka Lab Week) is only three months away, April 23-29, 2023. Now is the time for your laboratory team to start coming up with ideas for ways to celebrate!
“Lab Week is a great time to generate awareness about the important role of laboratory medicine, while also having some fun with colleagues,” says LeiLani Graffagnini, MLS(ASCP)CM, a laboratory operations and quality manager at Cormeum Lab Services, a reference laboratory in St. Rose, LA.
Ms. Graffagnini’s laboratory team took first place in ASCP’s Lab Week Video Contest in 2022. “It was a great experience for all of us, and we showcased our strengths and the quality of work we do in the medical laboratory,” she says.
With the permission of her laboratory’s department leadership, Ms. Graffagnini used a video camera to record her colleagues each doing what they do on a daily basis in the lab, from accessioning samples and taking inventory to explaining logistics and how decontamination is done.
In a move that comes straight out of Hollywood, she enlisted an assistant to have “a rolling chair on a track, like in the movies” as she videotaped her laboratory’s banner which said: “Samples are not just samples. They are patients.”
As a finishing touch, she put the edited
video to the song No Sleep, by Wiz Khalifa, and played it for her laboratory team and other colleagues before submitting it for the ASCP Lab Week Video Contest. Everyone loved it!
ASCP would love to have every laboratory in the nation join in the Lab Week celebration! In honor of Lab Week, ASCP is celebrating the laboratory team and their impact in the diagnosis of diseases with the 2023 Saved by the Lab Photo & Video Contest! How do you and your team work together to effect patient care? Gather your colleagues to showcase your delivery of care by taking pictures or making a video with your laboratory team.
To get started, simply upload your photo or video by 2 p.m. CDT on Friday, April 7, 2023. Vote for your favorites during Round One of voting by 2 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 13, 2023. The five entries in each category (photo or video) receiving the highest number of votes will move on to Round Two of voting, which begins at 2 p.m. CDT on Monday, April 17, 2023, and ends at 2 p.m. CDT on Thursday, April 20, 2023.
Ms. Graffagnini hopes to get her laboratory team to enter this year’s contest as well, and encourages all medical laboratory professionals to encourage their teams to participate in the ASCP Lab Week contest.
“It is good to let the community know about laboratory. People forget about the system, the people behind it, there are people in the background saving your life,” she says.
Discover ideas for fun ways to celebrate by checking out ASCP’s
Lab Week web page.
