Lab Medicine Rounds

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., sits down with Emily Shaffer, D.O., a resident physician in pathology and laboratory medicine for Northwell Health in Roslyn, New York, to talk about her experience participating on a laboratory inspection team. Timestamps:0:00 Intro00:53 What is your origin story for becoming a pathologist?02:06 What was your experience like participating in a laboratory inspection?03:18 Was there any kind of prep beforehand that you did, or what was the actual inspection day(s) like? How did that unfold?05:34 Were there people at your home laboratory that were taking you through what that might look like, or questions you might ask?07:03 Was the lab you inspected a bit similar to your home laboratory? What was that like?08:20 Was this a one-day inspection, or did it lead into two days?09:12 I’m kind of curious about that mentorship that happened; was that something the site leader discussed with you ahead of time?10:56 What is your reflection on what you took a

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., sits down with Shane Ferraro, M.H.S., PA(ASCP), an assistant supervisor of pathologists’ assistants in the Division of Anatomic Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to talk about the important innovation of 3D scanning in pathology. Timestamps:0:00 Intro00:54 Why is 3D scanning an important innovation in pathology?02:51 Are there certain activities you can do with the audience that you weren’t able to do before? Are there certain insights you are hearing from the learners when you are doing that kind of approach?03:40 What do you think is important for our audience to understand about 3D scanning?06:12 What are some of the practicalities for implementing 3D scanning in a pathology practice?08:23 Are there different teams that you are interacting with outside of pathology that is helping to make some bridges between pathology and other clinical departments?09:22 In pathology, it sounds like it got started with forensic pathologists, a

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., speaks with Robert Michel, editor-in-chief of The Dark Report, an intelligence service and publication that provides economic and strategic assessment of the clinical laboratory industry, to provide useful tools for laboratory management. Timestamps:

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., speaks with Beshoi Nashed, a visiting medical student from the Medical University of the Americas in Saint Kitts and Nevis, about his personal perspective on life that has helped him succeed where many others are challenged. Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:08 Where were you first introduced to this no excuses philosophy perspective, and what is it?03:09 What’s the perspective they had that they really imparted on you, what did it look like? 06:44 What do you think is important for our listeners to understand about, what is it that allows you to be successful with this no excuses approach?10:22 How has your practice changed, if at all, over that time?12:35 Where do you recommend our listeners get their own start?14:22 Outro

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., speaks with Dr. Nour Al-Mozain, a hematopathologist and transfusion medicine consultant at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, about the importance of reaching out to colleagues for advice.Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:05 What are a few of the reasons why you have reached out to colleagues for advice?02:36 What are a few of the challenges that you’ve had to navigate while reaching out to try to find this different perspective? 04:39 How do you work on maintaining awareness of where your blind spots are?05:22 Is there something in your training or a point that you can put your finger on to say this set you on the right course to always be mindful of my blind spots?06:38 How are you building this network of colleagues that you can reach out to?07:54 How do you set yourself up for success in getting a helpful answer?10:20 What advice to you have for early career healthcare professionals about asking for advice?12:12 Outro

0:00 Intro01:04 What is your origin story? How did you come to work in this unique health setting of educating patients?05:19 What are some of the common ways that you see healthcare really fail to successfully educate patients?09:59 How do you navigate the complexity of what you’re talking about? 16:12 How do you navigate those situations where the patient doesn’t seem to be understanding the information?18:05 What does the future of patient education look like to you?22:12 Outro

Timestamps0:00 Intro00:45 Why is workforce stability such an important topic for health care right now?04:25 What are a couple of the current challenges? Maybe a few with hiring, and then a few with retaining some of these quality employees.07:17 What are your thoughts about how do you keep your fingers on the pulse of the current needs and interest of the workforce? What’s the way to be a constantly evolving organization?09:04 Is this something that is a regular topic of discussion with management meeting about what we are hearing from our employees, or is this something that is more informal that you’re meeting with leadership for your group, reflecting on what you’re hearing from your employees and meetings? What does that look like?09:23 How does the laboratory and histocompatibility support organ transplantation? What kind of work happens behind the scene that enables this transplant to be as successful as possible?11:32 How do you handle and manage that in a positive way, when employees are making these

Timestamps:0:00 Introduction0:46 Why is it important for pathologists to know a thing or two about the legal system?3:49 Quality practices are something we are all involved in. Can you unpack those a little bit so listeners can think about how they’re engaging in that?5:05 High probability a physician or pathologist will eventually be involved in a legal proceeding. Tips for if/when that happens to you.7:05 Importance of SOPs and Quality Plans9:19 What does malpractice entail?14:11 What do you recommend for people who want to take more of an active or deliberate role in keeping up with legal practices? 20:32 International Surgical Pathology Symposium 2023 in London21:18 Outro

Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:54 How did you get started in the field of histocompatibility?03:44 Was that a mentor that helped you find this new role and pathway, or was there a particular patient that you took care of that opened your eyes to these other possibilities in lab medicine?05:28 What are a few things that you think healthcare professionals in general should understand about organ transplantation?07:51 Maybe for you, as someone who was practicing first in orthopedic surgery, and then making this transition to systems thinking, what has that been like and how do you navigate that now?09:23 How does the laboratory and histocompatibility support organ transplantation? What kind of work happens behind the scene that enables this transplant to be as successful as possible?11:53 Is the laboratory involved with the care of the transplant patient beyond the acute transplant? What does that look like?13:09 What do you predict is on the horizon for histocompatibility?14:50 How could somebody support organ transpl

Timestamps:0:00 Introduction0:37 Why is it important to update multiple myeloma testing?1:51 Lab testing driving treatment that is being done3:30 Explanation about multiple myeloma, how testing started, and how it has evolved6:02 Needing more sensitivity to detect it7:47 Driving treatment decisions9:02 What does this look like in practice?10:57 Minimal residual disease12:41 Outside of the box thinking, how has this impacted your practice today?17:41 Outro

Timestamps:0:00 Introduction0:40 Non-traditional education for pathologists11:17 Getting involved13:41 Self-learning16:19 Becoming an expert18:46 Other interests in practice or life22:05 Importance of completing projects23:59 Outro 

Timestamps:0:00 Introduction1:18 What is the difference between marijuana, hemp, THC, and CBD?2:58 So, is CBD legal in the United States?4:08 What are the common products you can find CBD in?4:25 How can CBD impact our health? Especially since it is not regulated.5:28 You run our drugs of abuse and forensics lab, is this having any effect on the testing you do there?10:45 For our laboratory medicine colleagues, what's important for them to understand about CBD and marijuana drug testing?13:55 What about different industries? How does it affect athletes in recovery for example?16:50 Are there any other takeaways you want the audience to appreciate from this?18:31 Outro

In this episode of “Lab Medicine Rounds,” Justin Kreuter, M.D., sits down with Justin Juskewitch, M.D., Ph.D., and Andrew Norgan, M.D., Ph.D., both assistant professors of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic, to talk about informatics for the pathologist.  

Timestamps:0:00 Intro00:45 Can you start us off by giving an overview of this latest outbreak of Monkeypox? And also if you could contrast that against Covid-19? 03:25 What do you think this increase means for our hospital laboratories?05:44 How can we provide the greatest value to our clinical colleagues and to our patients? 08:17 I know we sometimes do culture a virus and look at viruses. Is it that testing that some of us have in our laboratories that’s not specific enough, it looks like other viruses, is that why we have other tests that we’re using?10:00 Do you think that Monkeypox would be similar to Covid-19 where we have home test kits for the virus? 12:21 Outro

Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:32 So for residents who have recently started, now that orientation is behind us, where should their focus be?09:05 Do you have any advice for what step 1 or 2 might look like for a new resident?13:46 What is a new skill or two that residents should really focus on developing? 18:26 Could you share with the student listeners, what do you recommend to residents when they feel like they aren’t making the progress they would like?23:54 How do you recommend residents approach those meetings with their program director?28:05 Outro

Timestamps0:00 Intro01:10 Why is social media a tool that our lab medicine and pathology community should consider using?04:01 How do you reassure or talk to a pathology resident or a medical laboratory technologist, who is just getting started on social media, when a patient reaches out with a question?07:29 What is your advice about how to use your time wisely on social media?09:57 How do you think about the social media landscape at this point, realizing things are dynamic and changing? How do you characterize and think about these different platforms?12:10 How has your social media practice evolved over time? What has your journey been like and how has this affected you?14:48 What skills do you think that you can walk away from this with, what skills have this been helping with for you?16:44 What is next for you? What challenges do you want to throw out there for the experienced social media person?17:42 Outro

Timestamps:0:00 Intro01:01 What is a patient-scientist? 01:36 What’s the perspective of value they can bring to the table?03:57 What has surprised you the most about this experience of being a patient-scientist?08:05 Since you have shared this, what has been your experience interacting with the research community?08:57 What are your reflections about how the medical community should understand about developing these relationships, seeking out or welcoming patient scientists in their research, interest or questions?10:46 What’s been your own experience when you go to patient or research conferences, what is your experience like in those situations given you’re on both sides? 12:34 OutroResources:TEDx: Researching Your Own DiseaseSociety of Patient Scientists

Timestamps: 0:00 Intro00:42 What does the tick season look like this year? Is it true that is has been predicted to be a severe tick season?01:20 What are the different things that influence the tick season?03:49 What does “severe tick summer” mean for all of us working and learning in the hospital?05:08 Have you been getting invitations to talk to some of our clinical colleagues about that differential diagnosis?05:53 There has been a lot of concern over “superbugs”, are tick-borne diseases evolving as well?07:30 Going forward, is it going to get worse? What are the experts in the community saying?09:11 You do a lot of research in the field. I was curious if you have a favorite story about those experiences of leading some students and colleagues into the field to do this tick-based research?11:48 OutroResources:The Essentials of Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases

Timestamps:0:00 Intro00:46 Why is 3D imaging and printing important for patient care?03:18 Can you help our audience understand when should we be using this? When is it not so good? 09:38 How does that conversation go now differently? Now that somebody can hold this, how has that transformed the questions and the understanding that the patient has?13:05 Can you help us get our arms around what is the value in the scan, what is the print value?14:01 Technologies for scanning are improving and that’s resulting in better models for you to look at. Is printing of materials being used improving in such a way you can get the same textures?15:22 How do you see this field really developing? 17:55 Outro

Timestamps:0:00 Intro00:53 Why is the medical field interested in saliva?02:00 What sorts of information could be gleaned from saliva?03:17 Are there certain limitations of what could come out of saliva testing?04:56 Can you elaborate what you mean when you say “matrix?”06:16 How do you approach navigating what could be interferences?08:16 Would that be considered part of the matrix? Or is the matrix just the specimen itself?9:29 Could you elaborate those preanalytic variables a clinician may have top of mind, or what might be in their sphere of control, influence, awareness?11:41 What’s your advice to laboratory professionals about how we can detect when these kinds of things are going awry, or how do you keep your finger on the pulse of how your colleagues on the clinical side are using your tests?13:34 What do you see as the future for saliva testing like?14:54 OutroResources: https://www.aacc.org/cln/articles/2022/janfeb/saliva-in-the-spotlight https://news.mayocliniclabs.com/2022/04/07/darci-block-ph-d-d