Eleanor McCaughey, with Interior Health, has been nominated by Pat Johnston to receive the BCSLS Silver Award at the 2010 BCSLS AGM in Sidney. The Board of Directors of the BCSLS unanimously supported the nomination.

According to Johnston, "she [Eleanor] is our Quality Coordinator and has worked tirelessly on our Quality System and patient safety. She has developed live meeting training sessions for staff throughout IH to work on and has helped to develop the lab module in the PSLS (Patient Safety Learning System) provincial system. Her brain child of "TEST Tube Tammy" to get the message of the importance of the sample out to lab staff and other departments has been inspirational.  She shows a commitment to Patient Safety and Quality systems that deserves to be recognized."

The BCSLS Silver Award is presented to an individual in recognition of a significant contribution to Society activities and to the profession of Medical Laboratory Technology over a period of years. The contribution shall exceed that expected through the responsibilities of their position or office and may be primarily at a local level.

The recipient is presented with a silver pin, a certificate and a donation of $100 is made to a charity of their

choice in their name.

Eleanor is not able to attend Congress this year, so the BCSLS will arrange to have a certificate presented to her, at her workplace, sometime after the AGM.  She has requested that the donation to a charity be to the Canadian Cancer Society, and hoped that the money could be specifically directed to ovarian cancer.  Also, she would like the donation to be made in memory of her sister in law, Wendy Taylor. 

The BCSLS Annual Awards are sponsored by the British Columbia Society of Laboratory Science and are intended to recognize and acknowledge individuals for outstanding performance, dedication and contribution to the

profession of Medical Laboratory Technology or to the BCSLS. All Honorary Awards are given to technologists, or

medical laboratory assistants who are, at the time, members of the BCSLS. Any BCSLS member can nominate an individual for one of these awards and a nomination form is available on the BCSLS website.  The criteria for the various categories of awards are also on the website.

The BCSLS Congress 2011 will be held in Castlegar on September 29, 30 and October 1^st. The local organizing committee is already working hard putting together a comprehensive scientific agenda, an exciting social program and the annual trade show. The committee is Chaired by Shelby Giesbrecht , a long serving member of BCSLS and Past President of the CSMLS. Congress 2011 committee members will have a booth at Congress 2010 and will be making a presentation to inform members about what to expect in Castlegar next year.

A committee of the BCSLS has been working for some time now on revising the old BCSLS MLA Program Syllabus and transforming it into an up to date, new Competency Profile for MLAs. This new Competency Profile will become the guiding document for all MLA Education Programs in BC. It will ensure consistency among programs and will also ensure that the BC Profile matches, where possible, the Competency Profile of the CSMLS. This will allow for mobility of MLAs trained here in the province and will assist in the integration of MLAs trained in other parts of Canada. The new Competency Profile will be approved by the BCSLS Board in September of this year and will be available to educational institutions shortly thereafter. 

One of the BCSLS' most successful training programs is going International. Our program, Back to the Basics, has now been requested by Med Lab Professionals in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Philippines, Ecuador and Nigeria. Back to the Basics covers entry-level hematology and chemistry with some microbiology and transfusion medicine. This course is popular with Medical Laboratory Technologists re-entering the workforce and internationally trained technologists seeking to update their knowledge. It is accepted by most Canadian employers & regulatory bodies and the CSMLS. According to Malcolm Ashford, the BCSLS Executive Director, "the fact that we get so much interest in this program from internationally trained professionals is a testament to the quality of the program and it is only going to get better. We are in the process of redoing the entire program and will be bringing it up to date in the next few months. Once this re-do is complete we will re-launch the program and make it available to med lab professionals worldwide.

Labs in BC preparing for ISO 15189 accreditation might find the Decoding ISO 15189 interactive online education series helpful in building their understanding of 15189 requirements as well as in creating an action plan for implementing the standard. IQMH launches Decoding ISO 15189™ Interactive online education series designed to help labs implement the ISO 15189 standard Medical laboratories preparing for ISO 15189-based accreditation can rest a little easier with the release of the first nine modules of the Decoding ISO 15189™ series. Staff new to the standard can use the interactive online education series to develop a better understanding of the requirements and to create a plan of action. The International Organization for Standardization's ISO 15189:2007Medical laboratories - Particular requirements for quality and competence is an internationally-recognized standard being adopted by medical labs around the world in order to improve the reliability and accuracy of test results. Labs that adopt ISO 15189 use the principles of quality management in order to increase efficiencies and reduce errors. Decoding ISO 15189™ includes 15 modules, dozens of PDFs, video coaching tips from experts and readiness workbooks. The series will help labs understand quality management systems, map out all their processes and procedures and implement occurrence management guidelines. To learn more visit www.IQMH.org.

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