Greetings fellow laboratorians!

Typically in this space, I would write to you about everything that ASCLS-WI has accomplished during my time as your president. In a normal year, we would have sent delegates to the Legislative Symposium in Washington, D.C. to advocate for our profession. We would have held our State Convention in La Crosse; featuring many excellent speakers, networking sessions, and student events. And we would be preparing to send a delegation to the Joint Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Unfortunately, this has been anything but a normal year. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned this year upside down. The pandemic forced us to distance ourselves from our loved ones. We saw people we care about get sick with the Coronavirus. We watched as a surge of sick patients came into our hospitals. And we felt the impact of the economic shutdown, which ultimately made us cancel many of the events we had planned this year. But we laboratorians are a strong and resilient group of people.

Despite all of the cancellations, changes, and challenges that the pandemic forced upon us, ASCLS-WI still managed to accomplish a lot on behalf of our members. One of the major goals I had for this year was to get our budget balanced. We put together a task force that produced a lot of great suggestions for improving our financial situation, many of which were incorporated into the final budget. The COVID-19 pandemic created additional budgetary challenges, since we were forced to cancel our State Convention. The State Convention typically accounts for a large portion of our revenue as a state society. Even though we lost a large portion of our revenue, we were able to present a balanced budget at the annual Business Meeting. Our annual Business Meeting was held by Zoom, but we were still able to hold our elections, approve our budget, and select a delegation to attend the ASCLS-AGT Virtual Joint Annual Meeting. Accomplishing all of this in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic was only possible because of the flexibility and determination of our members.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our members and all laboratory professionals for their hard work, dedication, and professionalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each one of us has had an important role to play during the difficult time. We’ve validated instruments to perform COVID-19 testing. We’ve struggled to get test kits, reagents, swabs, and transport media so that we can run these critical diagnostic tests. We’ve performed the testing on these samples and answered questions about them. We’ve worked with students to help them finish their internships. We’ve been there to support each other through these challenging times. None of this work was easy, but my fellow laboratory professionals did what needed to be done so that patients could get the care that they needed. Without the work that we all did, the pandemic would have been much worse. Thank you for all that you do!

The one bright spot of this whole pandemic is that it brought us out from behind the scenes and put us in the spotlight. Everyone has been talking about testing. For the first time I can remember, people were talking about PCR and antibody tests on the news. People know who we are and what we do now. We can’t let them forget once this pandemic is finally over. We shouldn’t fade back behind the scenes. I challenge every laboratorian to continue advocating for our profession. Let’s use this opportunity to stay in the spotlight. Let people know the amazing work that laboratory professionals do on a daily basis. Post on social media. Share your stories. Make your voice heard. The more people that participate, the louder our voice will be!  #Lab4Life #IamASCLS .

If you want to get more involved but you’re just not sure how, please reach out to me or your Board of Directors. Our contact information is below. We’d be happy to work with you to find an opportunity that meets your needs and allows you to make your voice heard. To contact your Board of Directors, you can email asclswi.contact@gmail.com or you can contact me directly at mdlukowski@hotmail.com . We love getting feedback from our members, so please reach out to us and let us know how we’re doing. We are here to represent and serve you and your feedback helps us do a better job of that. I hope to hear from you!