By Merih Tesfazghi, PhD
Around 170 people participated in two half-day workshops on quality in the clinical laboratory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Olajumoke Oladipo, MD, from Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, and Merih Tesfazghi, PhD, from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, presented at both workshops as a part of the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine’s (ADLM’s, formerly AACC’s) Global Lab Quality Initiative.
The first workshop conducted was a workshop that explored the role of clinical pathologists within the healthcare system. The event, conducted in collaboration with the department of pathology at St. Paul Millennium Hospital, supported the ongoing efforts of the department of pathology to establish the first combined anatomic and clinical pathology residency program in Ethiopia. The hospital is advocating for the program to be implemented throughout the country. The combined residency program, which will add clinical pathology (CP) to an existing 3-year anatomic pathology (AP) program, will make it a 4-year AP/CP program.
This event was a focused, small-group workshop attended by approximately 21 participants, including pathologists and laboratory scientists from various regions in Ethiopia. The session provided an overview of the daily responsibilities of clinical pathologists in the United States. It featured presentations showcasing concrete examples of their contributions to advancing patient outcomes by establishing and managing robust quality assessment strategies, including internal quality control, external quality assessment, and alternative quality assessment programs.
The second workshop, which was organized in collaboration with the Ethiopian Medical Laboratory Association (EMLA), was focused on enhancing patient care through quality improvement strategies. The event was conducted at EMLA’s annual meeting and attracted a large audience of approximately 150 people. EMLA’s conferences sought to bring about strong laboratory systems for effective healthcare equity. Oladipo and Tesfazghi contributed to this theme with their own topics that they presented on.
The feedback from participants in both workshops was overwhelmingly positive, as demonstrated by their active participation and expressed interest in continued collaboration.
Gisachew Kedida, the executive director of EMLA, stated that he expected the partnership between the two societies to strengthen as a result of the workshop held in April, and mentioned the challenges still faced by the country's laboratory community. He emphasized his desire to continue such important joint initiatives.
Merih Tesfazghi, PhD, is a member of ADLM’s Africa Working Group and is an assistant professor of pathology and director of the core laboratory at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
The ADLM/St. Paul Millennium Hospital workshop and the ADLM/EMLA workshop were conducted as part of the Global Lab Quality Initiative funded by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. Any society interested in partnering on a similar workshop, please contact [email protected]