This award is funded by Lifescan, Inc. and includes a cash award and funds to support attendance at the the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (formerly AACC) Annual Meeting. The recipient, Pet Maniquis, is from Physicians Reference Laboratory, Providence Medical Center and Saint John Hospital, Kansas City, KS.
Congratulations on behalf of the Awards Committee.
Pet Maniquis
Pet Maniquis, MPA, MT(ASCP) POCC(the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM)), is originally from the Philippines, relocating to the US to further her studies in clinical laboratory technology. Pet has 40 years of experience in laboratory settings and a Master’s degree in Public Administration with emphasis in Health Administration from University of Missouri-Kansas City. She worked at Bethany Medical Center as special chemistry supervisor, forensic analyst and laboratory manager. She trained as a forensic analyst at the FBI laboratory in Arlington, VA and was a state expert witness for toxicology until 2000. In 2001, she moved to Providence Medical Center, eventually becoming the Point of Care Coordinator. In 2003, the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health Systems hired Physicians Reference Laboratory to manage the laboratory operations at Providence Medical Center and Saint John Hospital. Pet’s POCC responsibility grew from two hospitals to twelve hospitals, surgical centers, rehab hospitals and physician offices.
Her POCT duties include quality assurance and performance improvement, quality control review, coordinating proficiency testing performance, and writing policies and procedures. She is actively involved in training and recertification of POC end users and participates in the evaluation, selection and validation of POC devices. She implements devices on units, performs linearity, precision, correlation and method comparisons, and maintains POC devices in use.
Pet is a member of the American Association of Clinical Chemists (ADLM), American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP), and serves on the Board of Directors of the Clinical Laboratory Management Association (CLMA) Kansas City Chapter. She has helped run the Heart of America POC Network since its inception in 2004.
Pet volunteers as the technical consultant to the CLIA-certified Heart to Heart International Laboratory Volunteer Program. She was the first laboratorian to serve at a disaster with Heart to Heart International in Greensburg, KS after the town was devastated by a tornado. Through Heart to Heart International’s partnership with JayDoc Clinic, a free clinic run by Kansas University medical students, she organized local laboratory volunteers to offer services in the free clinic in the evenings. She went to Solola, Guatemala, with HHI on the WASH (Clean Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) project to help the locals who live around Lake Atitlan by providing water filters, medication, and education. She helped establish a clinical laboratory to provide simple diagnostic tests for blood and parasites, especially on school children.
In her spare time, Pet enjoys gardening, painting, architecture, photography, gourmet cooking, and travel. She has son, Michael, daughter in- law, Jenny, and granddaughter, Evey.