The April issue (PDF) of ASCP’s new quarterly newsmagazine for members, Critical Values, is devoted to the value of service. Inside this issue are stories about efforts to provide service directly to patients, expansion of U.S. service internationally, exemplary leaders who have advanced the profession through service in ASCP, and ASCP’s efforts to enhance service to members and thereby to the profession.

Other stories revisit research on critical values and present repeated calls for a consensus conference and practice guidelines on this challenging issue. The Arts in Culture section spotlights two women who have capitalized on—or perhaps driven—popular interest in forensic pathology to increase public awareness of medical laboratories. In the cover story, William G. Finn, MD, FASCP, a member of the ASCP Board of Directors, puts it all in perspective in his piece called, “The Customer Service Culture in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.”

Launched in January 2008, Critical Values contains news and feature stories for the entire laboratory team. In the first issue, ASCP members shared their experiences in the laboratories of Africa, their discoveries about the dichotomy between rich and poor nations, and about the surprising similarities.