Council of Laboratory Professionals and Council of Laboratory Management and Administration Plan to Strengthen Local Chapters and Ambassador Program in 2024

Among its goals for 2024, the ASCP Council of Laboratory Management and Administration has set an ambitious goal of establishing 10 more chapters, and the Council of Laboratory Professionals plans to leverage the local chapters to expand its outreach and bolster the Career Ambassador Program.  

“Our goal is to eventually have a minimum of one chapter in every (US) state,” says Joe Keary, MS, MBA, chair of the Council for Laboratory Management and Administration.  “Our chapters are the face of ASCP at the local level. We want to engage pathologists, residents, and pathologists’ assistants, not just laboratory professionals.”

“You make friends at the local level,” he adds. “It is a place of networking about potential opportunities. And, when you have a challenge, you can call a local colleague and ask how they would tackle a situation you have encountered.”  

The Council is planning its major spring event, KnowledgeLab, which will be held April 30 and May 1 in Texas. The event has been growing each year. “With KnowledgeLab, we are focusing on increasing vendor participation and attendees by 25 percent. That is a stretch goal, but achievable,” Mr. Keary adds.

His Council’s third goal is to support the ASCP Ambassador program alongside the Council of Laboratory Professionals. “We want to increase the number of our Ambassadors by 100 percent and increase their engagement by 50 percent,” he says.

Career Ambassadors are laboratory professionals who go out to local schools and community organizations to talk about the work that laboratory professionals do and to show the value that they bring to patient care.

“We are working to refine the toolkit that ASCP provides to support the Ambassadors,” Mr. Keary says. “There are science experiments that are pre-planned and information that is prepared and ready to hand out.”

Meantime, the Council of Laboratory Professionals also plans to bolster the Career Ambassador programs in the year ago, according to Chair Stephanie Whitehead, MBA, MPH, MLS(ASCP).

“This is a continuation of our 2023 goals, which are large. The Ambassadors are the face of our Council as well as ASCP,” she says.

The Council will work with the Council of Laboratory Management and Administration to harness the chapters’ reach into their communities so that the Career Ambassadors can make inroads into more schools.

A second goal, Ms. Whitehead said, is to enhance ASCP members’ engagement, and work to continue to connect with other medical laboratory scientist programs to support individuals who want to go into the laboratory profession. The Council will work in collaboration with the ASCP Workforce Steering Committee and the Council of Laboratory Management and Administration to support their efforts to recruit more young people into the profession, including individuals from underrepresented populations.

A third goal is to support efforts to retain well qualified laboratory professionals. “We want to ensure the workforce of the future,” Ms. Whitehead says. “We want to see how we can strengthen networking opportunities for our members and continue to drive home the value of ASCP’s new online community platform as an example of the value that an ASCP membership provides.”