April 2023

First and foremost, I would like to give a big shout out to our new webmaster Jessica Fry. She has done an awesome jobgetting the sight redone. Please, if you have not already done so please visit ASCLS ND and check it out. 

April brought with it the ASCLS ND state meeting which was held April 27-28, 2023 in Minot. While attendance was low, the quality of speakers was large. 23 different talks that covered many subjects. We had speakers from Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Minnesota, Alabama, South Dakota, North Dakota and Arkansas. Some were in person and some were virtual. Thank you to all the speakers. The state meeting also brought the voting in of new officers and state awards.

These will be highlighted in this newsletter. I would love to thank all the ND members for your continued membership and participation in our wonderful state society. We could not do it without all of you. Please consider volunteering, we would love to get you involved.

Warmest regards,

Sharon Reistad

October 2022

Hello everyone, I would like to introduce myself. I am Sharon Reistad, ASCLS-ND president for 2022-23. I am honored to serve you. I retired from the UND Center for Family Medicine in 2019. I live in Minot with my husband, Art (who is also retired). I have 2 fabulous boys who will be 34 in Nov. and an amazing daughter in law. One son lives here in Minot and the other, with his wife, live in Florida. I have 4 grand kitties and a grand dog. I love them all.

There are many changes coming in the next year. At the Joint Annual Meeting (JAM) the House of Delegates voted to remove the “regional” from the directorship. What this means is the board of directors will no longer be made up of one director from each region. It will still be made up of 10 directors, but they can be from any region. Also decided by the Board of Directors, the only requirement for being a director is to have been a member of ASCLS for 5 consecutive years. There is still a lot of unanswered questions about how this will all work but they are working on it.

We also want to work on expanding our membership. Talk to you co-workers, MLS and phlebotomy friend about becoming a member of ASCLS. I will keep everyone updated on changes as I find out about them. If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas please contact me.

Here is to a great year.

Sharon Reistad sreistad@srt.com

Winter 2018

From ASCLS-ND President Brooke Solberg

I recently reviewed some employee satisfaction survey results from a North Dakota laboratory. While most of what I saw was expected, one result in particular caught my attention (and not in a good way) - that a fair number of employees did not feel what they did on a daily basis made a significant contribution to patient care. My lab heart broke as I thought about this sentiment. We do such an important job, and patient care is impacted by the results we give – so how could my fellow laboratorians feel this way?

In trying to answer this question, I realized that the lab is one of those things in life that people take for granted. I am reminded of a recent power outage, and how I kept trying to turn the lights on out of habit, only to have nothing happen. Each time I flicked the switch and remained in darkness, I found myself realizing just how much I relied on those lights. Isn’t that a good analogy for the lab? We are the epitome of the saying “you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”. It’s a catch-22…people won’t appreciate us unless we aren’t there, and we, being the dedicated lab professionals that we are, would never let the lab not ‘be there’.

The idea of the lab not ‘being there’ does bring up an interesting image, however. What would healthcare look like without the lab? Stop and think about that. Think about the young baby brought to the ER in the middle of the night because she is having difficulty breathing, and how the positive RSV test issued by the lab gives the parents and physicians involved an answer and a course of action. Think about the patient whose heart attack is identified early through diligent lab testing, thus reducing long-term damage and preserving quality of life. Think about the hopeful couple that finds out they are expecting a baby with a positive pregnancy test. Think about the patient whose lab results show they are ready to go home after a lengthy hospital stay, and can be with family again. The list could go on, and on, and on. And the message is the same with each scenario – what we do in the lab IS making a difference for patients, even if they don’t necessarily realize it.

Accolades for the laboratory likely aren’t going to come from the patient, or the physician, because they don’t know what it would be like without the lab, and thanks to laboratorians like you, they hopefully never will! But that does mean we must provide our own compliments. We must remind ourselves and our co-workers of our worth on a daily basis. In doing this, we will boost morale (and maybe even increase those employee satisfaction survey results!), which will help ensure that no patient will ever have to appreciate us because we are gone.