2007 ASCP Annual Meeting Attendees Leave New Orleans Richer for the Experience
Heart and Science of Pathology on Full Display
ASCP brought more than 1,000 people to New Orleans and raised $13,000 to assist area families without health care during the 2007 ASCP Annual Meeting Oct. 18-21. Eight pillars of the pathology and laboratory medicine community received ASCP’s new Master Awards, and two pathologists from Tanzania were on hand as the first recipients of complementary ASCP memberships for pathologists in resource-poor nations. Nobel Laureate J. Robin Warren, MD, offered a fascinating account of his discovery of Helicobacter pylori and the opposition he encountered from the scientific community along the way. But the highlight of this year’s event undoubtedly was the gripping account by Gregory Henderson, MD, PhD, FASCP, of his experience treating people in the New Orleans Convention Center after Hurricane Katrina.
Laboratory Medical Director at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton, WA, Henderson returned to his hometown of New Orleans to deliver ASCP’s Opening Keynote Address on Oct. 18. He talked about the hurricane and its terrible aftermath, and about how the experience woke him up to the need for pathologists and laboratory professionals to step up to opportunities to help people and patients where they are needed more.
“In the weeks of hell immediately following Katrina, I learned more about other people, about myself, about being a physician, and about being a pathologist than in all my prior experiences in life combined,” said Henderson, who had taken a job at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans weeks before the hurricane hit. He moved to Washington in 2007.
“But now that the water has receded and life is somewhat back to normal, I am still faced with the challenge that most of you are. Outside of the unspeakable nightmare of an unprecedented natural disaster, how do you find that way to creatively engage with your own specialty so that you are always fanning your flame, reaffirming your own value, and insuring that patients and colleagues recognize your value? Well, I have found one avenue that has been opened by your professional society, the ASCP, that I suspect many of you don’t even know about. And it is my great pride to be the one to tell you about it and encourage you to engage with it. Because the ASCP has opened the road to another, much larger world that is still without you, and desperately needs you.”
Henderson went on to describe the ASCP Institute’s programs to provide training and support for laboratory personnel in resource-poor countries severely affected by AIDS over the past two years through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in conjunction with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
“In August, 2005 – right about the same time that we in New Orleans were quite literally up to our necks in water – the ASCP deployed its first two major laboratory efforts in Ethiopia and Kenya,” he said. “Now, as the program begins its third year, sustained laboratory efforts have been established in Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland and Cote d’Ivoire (that’s the Ivory Coast for those of you who are not from New Orleans). That is a current total of twelve countries with well-run functioning diagnostic laboratories, where once there were none. By my calculations that is an annual growth rate of 300 percent. I bet you wish your investment portfolio had done this well.
“In each of these countries the ASCP Institute staff and volunteers devote their time and expertise to facilitate the trainings, conduct assessments and provide technical assistance. ASCP Institute volunteer members have created the training materials that are now used all over the world.”
Henderson said the ASCP Institute’s project can redefine pathology and laboratory medicine as a profession and encouraged members to get involved.
“If you have heard nothing else in this talk, please hear this – the world needs you, the world aches and suffers for want of you, your knowledge, your expertise, and your compassion,” he said. “Please don’t make them continue to cry out for you. Find a way to step out of your laboratory, and into this world.”
Before Henderson’s address, ASCP 2006-07 President John S.J. Brooks, MD, FASCP, presented Society’s new Master Awards to:
- James Linder, MD, MASCP
- Virginia A. LiVolsi, MD, MASCP
- George D. Lundberg, MD, MASCP
- Juan Rosai, MD, MASCP
- Michele L. Best, MASCP, MT(ASCP)
- Patricia J. Ellinger, MASCP, MT(ASCP)CMSBBCM
- Cecil D. Dunn, MASCP, MT(ASCP)
- Linda L. Fell, MASCP, MT(ASCP)SH
ASCP presented its first complementary international memberships for pathologists in resource-poor countries to:
- Charles Massambu, MD, Assistant Director of Diagnostic Services, Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare
- Christina Mwangi, MD, Program Director of Laboratory Infrastructure for the Centers for Disease Control Tanzania
Recipients of ASCP 2007 Awards were:
- Ronald L. Weiss, MD, FASCP, Ward Burdick Award for Distinguished Service to Clinical Pathology
- Douglas A. Triplett, MD, H.P. Smith Award for Distinguished Pathology Educator
- Anna R. Graham, MD, FASCP, Israel Davidsohn Award for Distinguished Service
- Daniel M. Knowles, MD, FASCP, Philip Levine Award for Outstanding Research
ASCP inducted its officers for 2007-08:
- President: Lee H. Hilborne, MD, MPH, FASCP, DLM(ASCP)
- President Elect: Barbara J. McKenna, MD, FASCP
- Vice President: Mark H. Stoler, MD, FASCP
- Secretary: John E. Tomaszewski, MD, FASCP
- Treasurer: C. Bruce Alexander, MD, FASCP
- Immediate Past President: John S.J. Brooks, MD, FASCP
ASCP’s Silent Auction raised over $13,000 for the United Way Workforce Health Center Project, a program in the early development stage that will provide affordable, quality healthcare to uninsured working families in the greater New Orleans area.
More than 50 exhibitors presented their products and services on Friday, Oct. 19 and Saturday, Oct. 20. Four companion society meetings were conducted on Wednesday, Oct. 17 by the Society for Hematopathology, Association of Indian Pathologists, Clinical Cytometry Society, and Rodger C. Haggitt Gastrointestinal Pathology Society. Samuel A. Yousem, MD, FASCP, presented the Arthur Purdy Stout Society Keynote Address.
Education programs for pathologists and laboratory professionals, industry breakfast symposia, breakfast roundtable discussion groups, slide seminars, and a full slate of ASCP governance meetings rounded out the banquet of events that made the 2007 ASCP Annual Meeting in New Orleans a feast for everyone.
