Clinical Laboratory Sciences hosts inaugural professionalism ceremony
By Maude Veech
MAY 24, 2006--The Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences (CLS) in the School of Allied Health Sciences held its inaugural professionalism ceremony earlier this year in the Old Red Amphitheater.
Speakers included Dr. Vicki S. Freeman, department chair; Dr. Alice Anne O’Donell, Osler Scholar emeritus at UTMB, and Dr. Alexander J. Indrikovs, associate professor of CLS. Senior CLS student Nadara D. Bishop-Reed and CLS alumnus J. Eddie Salazar also spoke on the importance of professionalism.
The program culminated with CLS faculty presenting each of the 82 junior and senior students with a professionalism pin commissioned for the occasion. Nineteen distance-education students, including four who participate in the UTMB program from UT Permian Basin, participated in abbreviated versions of the ceremony.
Clinical laboratory scientists and technicians test and analyze blood, providing 60-70 percent of the data used to treat patients.
The CLS ceremony is part of UTMB’s growing emphasis on professionalism since Dr. John D. Stobo’s arrival as president in 1997. The Professionalism & You brochure was published beginning in 1998, the Professionalism Board was created in 2000, and 2001 brought the endowment of the John P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine (which John P. McGovern has followed with other contributions intended to foster the teaching and practice of compassionate, patient-centered care).
This effort continued with the institution-wide roll-out of the honor pledge, the creation of the Professionalism Charter Subcommittee in 2002 and, most recently, with the publishing of the second version of the Professionalism Charter in 2005.
In her remarks, Bishop-Reed spoke of the importance of honesty in research, citing a Chronicle of Higher Education article which reported that less than 1.5 percent of the 3,247 American scientists who responded to a survey admitted to falsifying data or plagiarizing other researchers’ work.
“Now, 1.5 percent does not sound like too much–but let me ask you–isn’t it too much?” Bishop-Reed said.
Salazar drove home the close relationship between professionalism and patient care. “Integrity is key to our survival and the welfare of our patients.
“We have to be committed day in and day out–or night, as it used to be in my case–to our profession, to each other, to the health care team.” He went on to point out that, although CLS professionals may work behind the scenes, compassion means remembering that behind every lab result they generate, there is an individual patient in need of care, comfort and healing.
Freeman touched on a similar theme, stressing that professionalism is essential to the noble profession CLS students are about to enter. Pointing out that Old Red is the oldest medical school building in Texas, Freeman emphasized the pride she takes in knowing that UTMB’s CLS program is one of the oldest in the country. “This ceremony officially marks your entrance into the ranks of your profession–and this evening you will receive an outward sign of becoming a clinical laboratory sciences student professional.”
The ceremony, which will take place annually for new students, is similar to the School of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony (inaugurated in 1996), the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences’ Community of Scholars Ceremony (1998), the School of Allied Health Sciences’ Physician Assistant White Coat Ceremony (2001) and the School of Nursing’s Nightingale Ceremony (2003), all of which serve as markers of students’ commitment to professionalism, high ideals and ethics in the professions they are entering.
As Freeman pointed out, all involved have high hopes for these students.
“Although the responsibility is great, your shoulders are broad, your minds are sharp and you are our best and brightest,” she said.