The Asia-Pacific Subcommittee's first-ever Pakistan workshop
Muhammad Zubair, MBBS, FCPS, IFCAP
From February 10 to 12, 2026, for the first time ever, the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) conducted a virtual workshop in partnership with the Pakistan Society of Chemical Pathologists (PSCP) and the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute and Research Center (PKLI & RC). Four members from ADLM’s Asia-Pacific Subcommittee presented virtually from their U.S.-based institutions to over 300 attendees who tuned in from across Pakistan.
Mohammad Zubair, MBBS, FCPS, IFCAP, part of PKLI&RC’s department of pathology, emphasized that the program’s importance lay in its ability to reach participants where they were. Attendees could join from anywhere without taking time off work and laboratorians in rural areas had greater access without the need for a long commute.
The Asia-Pacific Subcommittee was eager to support laboratorians in Pakistan as they addressed some of their biggest challenges: quality management systems, shortage of personnel in rural areas, financial barriers in labs, and the difficulty of following laboratory guidelines. Some of these issues are intertwined – such as limited funding can prevent labs from having adequate IQC and EQA assessments. Presentations by Anu Maharjan, PhD, DABCC, NRCC, FADLM, Qing Meng, PhD, MD, DABCC, FADLM, Bob Rej, PhD, Victoria Zhang, MBA, PhD, DABCC, FADLM covered these topics and offered input as attendees asked questions and worked through scenarios drawn from the laboratorians’ day-to-day activities.
Laboratory medicine professionals in Pakistan have been working to address the challenges they face. Their national associations have played a significant role by hosting annual conferences, workshops and webinars. Despite these efforts, Zubair—who supports the events through his involvement in professional societies—explained, “We need hands-on experience.” Education alone can take a person only so far. Actual interaction with the lesson’s learned offer that needed real-world experience.
ADLM is working to support this next step by providing hands-on exercises at workshops. In 2023, many laboratory medicine professionals in Pakistan participated in a special offering through ADLM’s Global Lab Quality Initiative (GLQI), which provided 100 laboratorians free access to certificate courses on quality control. Individuals who completed the program were also given a training-of-trainers to help them take back what they had learned to their communities.
The ADLM/PSCP/PKLI&RC workshop was conducted as a part of the Global Lab Quality Initiative funded by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation. Any society interested in partnering on a similar workshop should contact [email protected].