Lab medicine at ADLM goes global

ADLM's Latin America Subcommittee started traveling to Latin America in 2011 as part of the group’s original global activities. On a stop to Colombia, the Subcommittee conducted a workshop at COLABIOCLI, where they met one of the attendees Alicia Beatriz Gaviria Díaz, MS. Gaviria is a bacteriologist in Cartagena who opened her own lab. The Subcommittee is looking forward to making similar connections at COLABIOCLI 2026, where they will travel in just a few days.

Moving south to Bolivia, the Subcommittee met Reina Jenny Gutierrez Rendón, MSc, through a workshop with the CDC, ADLM, and the La Sociedad Boliviana de Bioquímica Clínica (SOBOBIOCLI) as collaborators. After the workshop, Gutierrez Rendón hosted a health fair in her community where she tested patients with POCT lipid devices, a method she learned during the workshop. 

A few months after Brazil, ADLM was back in Latin America in Guadalajara, Mexico and Santiago, Chile, to present POCT workshops sponsored by Roche. Two speakers presented to a select audience of point-of-care testing (POCT) professionals. There, the Subcommittee met Carolina Prieto, a clinical lab specialist at a hospital in Santiago. She was enthusiastic when she heard about this POCT-focused workshop, especially due to her passion for improving access to high-quality diagnostic services in rural communities. Prieto works closely within of her favorite places in Chile: a remote archipelago named Chiloe. 

In just a few days, the Subcommittee is traveling to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to conduct a pre-congress workshop at COLABIOCLI. There, they will meet with COLABIOCLI leadership, continue to strengthen relationships, and network at the biggest laboratory science meeting in Latin America.

In 2023, the Asia Pacific Subcommittee began working with China’s neighbor. Mongolia, where they conducted a workshop on “Adding Value to Patient Care Using Quality Control.” An ADLM distance learning certificate program gave laboratory professionals from all over the world a chance to take an online certificate course. From that opportunity, a participant from the 2024 Mongolia workshop Khulan Purevdorj was able to host a workshop with her colleagues that left an impact on laboratory science in her country. ADLM returned to Mongolia earlier this year for a workshop on strengthening the regulatory healthcare systems. The workshop expanded ADLM’s support for laboratory medicine in the country by creating a strong connection with the Mongolia Ministry of Health (MOH). Recordings of the event will be used to train MOH employees in the future.

ADLM went to Kazakhstan for the first time in 2024 for a workshop, partnering with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the International Society for Newborn Screening (ISNS), the International Federation for Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) and the Kazakhstan Association of Medical Laboratory Diagnostics (KAMLD). Together, the organizations addressed newborn screening priorities and helped participants develop a plan for future work.

Nepal has welcomed ADLM twice for workshops: once in 2018, and another time in 2025. The more recent workshop brought attendees presentations on quality indicators, lab personnel training, AI, machine learning, and risk management. 

Africa is a massive continent with great potential. ADLM was able to expand efforts in Africa as its third step toward globalizing its programming. The Africa Subcommittee has been focused on re-visiting countries multiple times for workshops to build upon previous knowledge and connections. By returning to partner countries, The Subcommittee can continue earlier work and maintain professional relationships. This was done most recently in Nigeria: the Subcommittee visited Abuja at the end of 2025 for a workshop on quality management strategies. Then, in early 2026, four Africa Subcommittee speakers reconnected with the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) virtually for a two-day workshop to support the efforts of Nigerian laboratory medicine professionals to create quality guidelines for point-of-care testing. The joint effort resulted in the Association for Clinical Chemistry of Nigeria’s production of a white paper on POC national policy that is planned to be submitted to the Ministry of Health.

In Ethiopia, the group visited for two separate half-day workshops. One workshop supported the efforts of establishing a residency program at a hospital. The other workshop was in collaboration with the Ethiopian Medical Laboratory Association (EMLA) with topics of enhancing patient care through quality improvement strategies.

At the end of this year, the Africa Subcommittee will travel to Livingstone, Zambia for the third time to conduct a satellite workshop at the Biomedical Society of Zambia's (BMSZ's) annual conference. Last time they attended in 2024, the speakers met Mukoshya Kalunga, a quality manager at Livingstone University teaching hospital. Kalunga's attendance at ADLM's workshop gave her confidence to present at a different conference. The upcoming workshop will draw on the subcommittee’s POCT programming in Nigeria to help Zambia develop its own guidelines for point-of-care testing.

Just in 2026, the Africa Subcommittee has visited Nigeria and Kenya twice. Visiting countries multiple times has given the Africa Subcommittee a unique advantage of truly making impact and solidifying connections.