Chairman's Column
Division C Programming
Division Meeting and Sack Lunch
Ronald J. Zabransky, Ph.D., ABMM Becomes Chair in July 1998
1998 Symposia for the General Meeting
Electronic Communication
Division C is on the World Wide Web
Division C Listserver (New!)
What is ASM doing for us?
BET Receives National Award for Curriculum Project
1999 Centennial General Meeting, Chicago, IL
So many of us see Division C as a "place to belong" in ASM but we may not yet see it as a valuable resource for our profession. Among our members walk professionals with great wisdom and experience in clinical science and healthcare and who, with many of us, areconcerned about how changes in healthcare will impact our jobs. Being an agent of change is far more productive than being a victim of change. Many of our Division C members are experiencing this challenge now. ASM and the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM), and the newly formed College, will be a sentinel and voice for us but we need to be a part of that process. In fact, the AAM is sponsoring a Roundtable at the 1998 General Meeting reporting on an exciting colloquium held last year in Washington addressing the issue of change for clinical microbiologists. Don't miss it. Now, more than ever, we invite you to participate in your Division activities. Respond to those issues related to our profession, don't just assume that others will do it.
In this issue of the Newsletter, you will get a view of the Division C programming for the ASM General Meeting in Atlanta, GA, May 17-21. Because we have the largest Division within ASM, our programming is always a challenge but the content is exciting. This year is no different. There are two interactive session you don't want to miss. The special lectures presented by our honored award recipients will challenge us all.
Division C now has a home page on the ASM web site and we invite you to take a look at it. Dr. Dan Wiedbrauk developed our page with input from several of our members. In addition, we have developed an invitation-only listserv for doctoral-level microbiology laboratory directors who communicate by e-mail. Any one of over 150 current participants in this group can nominate others for inclusion. We are in the process of developing a similar listserv designed for clinical laboratory supervisors and technologists. Electronic communication is one of our most efficient means of information transfer and our Division wants to offer the opportunity for all who need it.
This Newsletter will be posted on our Division C homepage in addition to mailing it to our members. In the future, as more of us gain access to the Web, the Newsletter may only be posted to the homepage.
I am honored to have been able to serve as Division C Chair for 1997-98. Dr. Ronald Zabransky of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Cleveland, OH will assume the responsibility of Chair in July. Dr. Zabransky brings a wealth of experience to the position and will serve us well.
-Mike Miller, Ph.D., ABMM
This year we had almost 600 abstracts submitted for consideration as poster sessions. Division C members are encouraged to carefully review the instructions for writing abstracts prior to sending them. Our international colleagues who may be unfamiliar with English are further encouraged to get editorial assistance if necessary prior to submitting their abstract. Abstracts should be a miniature of the published document, briefly stating a problem, outlining the sound scientific methods used, summarizing the results, and stating a clear and reasonable conclusion. If all of these components are not present, the abstract will likely be rejected as will abstracts that contain tables or references.
Division C is usually able to program seven oral sessions including symposia, roundtables, and interactive sessions. If poster sessions are the "blood" of the ASM meeting, the oral sessions are the "heart beat". Our members depend on these oral sessions to provide the latest information in our profession. Although the symposia topics are not finalized until early summer, ideas for topics and proposals for 1999 meeting sessions in Chicago should be sent to the Division Chair prior to the 1998 ASM meeting. Much of the 1999 program plans will be made at meetings during the 1998 ASM meeting in Atlanta.
Sessions for 1998 are designed to limit walking distance in the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC). All sessions for Division Group I and II (Division C is in Group I) will be held in the East wing of the GWCC and Groups III and IV will have their sessions in the West wing.
The Division C business meeting will be held Tuesday morning immediately after the session "Update on the Gram Positive Cocci". The meeting should begin no later than 11:00am. A sack lunch for 250 attendees will be provided compliments of Murex Diagnostics. We thank Murex for their support of Division C and its activities.
Dr. Ronald Zabransky is the incoming Chair of Division C and assumes office in July 1998. He is currently the Chief of Microbiology at the VA Medical Center in Cleveland, OH and Professor of Pathology at Case Western Reserve University Medical School. Dr. Zabransky brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to this position and he will serve us well.
Dr. Zabransky received his B.S. degree from Rutgers University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He began his career in the Section of Clinical Microbiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN from which he moved to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, WI with academic appointments at the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He spent the next four years at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX prior to his present position.
Dr. Zabransky is an editor for the Clinical Microbiology Newsletter and has served on the editorial boards of Diagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease and Microbiology Letters. He is an invited reviewer for four other major journals.
He has served in many positions of leadership in ASM. He has been Chairman of the National Registry of Microbiologists, a member of the AAM Board of Governors, a member of the ABMM Board, the Board of Education and Training, the Laboratory Practices Committee of the Public and Scientific Affairs Board, and several other influential boards and committees of ASM.
Monday AM - Division C Lecturer and winner of the Becton Dickinson Award: Dr. Richard Facklam; followed by Case Presentations in Clinical Microbiology (Interactive).
Monday PM - Current Issues in Medical Parasitology.
Also of interest, the Academy is sponsoring
an afternoon roundtable entitled Clinical Microbiology and the Changing
World of Health Care.
Tuesday AM - Update on Gram-positive Cocci: Taxonomy, Identification, and Clinical Significance; Followed by Division Meeting and lunch.
Tuesday PM - Pediatric Microbiology: Kids are Different.
Wednesday AM - Perspectives on Laboratory Mergers for Clinical Microbiology.
Wednesday PM - Lecture by bioMerieux Vitek Sonnenwirth Award
winner Dr. Joseph Staneck; followed by Practical Problems in Clinical
Microbiology (interactive).
Also of interest to Division C members, the PSAB
is presenting a roundtable, Public Policy Update on Clinical Microbiology.
Thursday AM - Confronting Emerging Antimicrobial Resistance: Guidance for the Laboratory and Clinician.
Thursday PM - Algorithms for Clinical Microbiology.
We congratulate our award winners and invite you to view their biographies in the ASM News.
Communication among our members and colleagues is absolutely critical if we are to meet the expectations of those we serve in our profession. Please make sure that your e-mail address and fax number are a part of your ASM membership information.
Division C has created a Website and a discussion group (listserver) to improve communications and information sharing among our members.
Contact our Division C Website at http://www.asmusa.org/division/c/
This website has a number of useful features for the clinical microbiologist. Among other things, the site contains a calender of events of interest to clinical microbiologists; links to other microbiology sites; a growing library of microbiological images; and a ‘Hot Papers' page which contains a listing of practical recent papers and associated internet links. The ‘Problem of the Month' page will be discontinued because members can now discuss problems on the listserver.
The website will be updated frequently to maintain and improve its usefulness. However, member input is necessary to improve it's content. Members are encouraged to submit images for the photo library; meeting information for the calender; interesting microbiological links for the Link Page; and suggestions for improving the site. We are also looking for volunteers to organize a Case Study page which will be published later.
The Division C listserver will become active on April 1, 1998. The purpose of the listserver is to create a discussion group for our members who work in, or have an interest in, clinical microbiology laboratories. Members of the group are encouraged to share information or ask questions on important problems faced by Clinical Microbiologists. Almost anything can be covered in this forum from isolation procedures to reimbursements, re-engineering, to handling problem employees. The goal of this project is to improve communication among clinical microbiology laboratories and ultimately, to improve patient care.
To subscribe to the list, send the following message to majordomo@netraasm.asmusa.org
subscribe divc
Be sure to place this command in the body of the message and leave
the subject line blank. To remove yourself from this group, send
the following command to the above address:
unsubscribe divc
Group members can send E-mail messages to every member of the group by addressing E-mail messages to: divc@netraasm.asmusa.org For more information, send an E-mail message to CPWebmaster@beaumont.edu or call Dan Wiedbrauk, Ph.D. at (248) 551-8022.
-Dan Wiedbrauk, Ph.D.
William Beaumont Hospital
dwiedbrauk@beaumont.edu
ASM is actively involved and working for us on a number of fronts of which we should be aware. Amy Melnick, the Manager of the Office of Public Affairs, is our tireless advocate on a broad playing field and updates us on what ASM is doing for us.
ASM is an active member of the Laboratory Health Care Partnership which was formed to highlight the significant contribution of laboratory services to the prevention, early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. The Partnership met recently with the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCGA), a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to assessing, measuring and reporting on the quality of managed care plans, in order to begin a valuable association with that group.
The Partnership also met with officials from the Agency for Health Care Policy Research, DHHS, charged with supporting research designed to improve the quality of health care, reduce its cost, and broaden access to essential services. This group is interested in funding research based on the outcomes of appropriate diagnostic testing.
The Partnership met with officials at the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) in Chicago to discuss the new ORYX initiative which seeks to integrate outcomes and other performance measurement data into the accreditation process. The Partnership also met with the President of the National Health Council to discuss working collaboratively on communicating the importance of quality laboratory services for patients.
ASM has been proactive in responding to CDC and OSHA on their respective documents which impact the microbiology laboratory. The CDC draft guidelines Goals for Working Safely with Mycobacterium tuberculosis was published in the Federal Register in February, 1997. As a result of ASM's and other comments, these guidelines will be significantly revised. The OSHA proposed rule on Occupational Exposure to Tuberculosis was published in the Federal Register in October 1997. ASM has submitted a statement to OSHA commenting on their rule and encouraged OSHA to emphasize laboratory worker training and education as the best way to prevent occupational exposure to TB. ASM will also testify at an OSHA public hearing in Washington DC in mid-April. For a copy of ASM's statement, see the homepage at www.asmusa.org/pasrc/oshatb.htm .
ASM met with HCFA officials in July to discuss
concerns raised by the Federal Resister publication of August 29, 1997
of an update to the CLIA fee schedule announcing increases. In October,
the PSAB/ASM submitted comments to HCFA objecting to the significant increases,
which for large volume labs could be increases of over 1300%. The
regulatory notice can be found at www.asmusa.org/pasrc/pdfs/clia.pdf
and ASM's comments can be found at www.asmusa.org/pasrc/fees.htm
.
Dr. Alice Weissfeld, Chair of the Committee on Professional
Affairs, PSAB testified on behalf of the Coalition to Preserve Save Patient
Testing before the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee in
the fall of 1997. Her testimony voiced opposition to exempting physician
office labs from oversight by CLIA. These POL's make up about 50%
of the total number of clinical labs in the U.S. and, according to a study
conducted by the State of California, tend to have a higher failure rate
in proficiency testing than other laboratories.
ASM has engaged the Lewin Group, a consulting firm, to investigate, using survey methods, the impact of managed care and other changes on clinical microbiologists and laboratories. Laboratory directors, technologists, pathologists, and hospital administrators are participating in this survey that will be completed in time for the PSAB presentation at this years General meeting (see above). This is important to all of us.
Division C appreciates the efforts of ASM on our behalf and recognizes the invaluable participation of our Division C members in many of these activities.
The Committee on Distance Education, Board of Education and Training (BET) received a $155,000 award from the National Science Foundation to develop an electronic collection of peer- reviewed teaching and learning resources for microbiology education. The intent is for the material to be available on the Web.
The collection will include all types of microscopic images including electron and scanning electron microscope images, macroscopic images (colonies or natural samples), time lapsed photography, video and audiotapes, animations of processes, and other teaching tools. Submitted materials must be copyright free, submitted with a provided document, and will be developed into final form by ASM's undergraduate educators. If you would like to submit materials for review by the June 15, 1998 deadline, you may contact the National Collection of Microbial Resources, Office of Education and Training, ASM, 1325 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20005. Updates about the program can be found at www.asmusa.org/edusrc/educ3.htm.
Next year's gathering marks the 100th anniversary of our ASM General Meeting which will be unique in many ways. Plans have been under way for some time to create and offer programming commensurate with the significance of this event. Keep this in mind and be creative when you offer suggestions for Division C programming for 1999 in Chicago.