If you’re looking for specifics on a laboratory medicine topic, but prefer smaller groups with plenty of opportunities to ask questions, pack a meal and seek out the Brown Bag sessions at the 69th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo, July 30-Aug. 3.
These special sessions take place twice a day, at 7:30 a.m. and at 12:30 p.m. on July 31, Aug. 1, and 2 (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) and are limited to 10 participants at each session. They also require extra registration ($25) above regular registration.
“Brown Bags are always a popular option for attendees. What better way to get information on a specific topic that you’re interested in, in a small group setting where you can actually interact with the presenter,” Joely Straseski, PhD, DABCC, FACB, MT (ASCP), an Annual Meeting Organizing Committee member who coordinated the Brown Bag sessions, told CLN Stat. Straseski is medical director of endocrinology and co-medical director of the core laboratory at ARUP Laboratories in Salt Lake City and an associate professor of pathology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Straseski also chairs CLN's editorial board.
The 2017 lineup of 86 Brown Bag sessions has something for everyone, according to Straseski. “We’ve got a widely diverse lineup of Brown Bag topics this year,” said she.
Several sessions, each worth 1 CE hour, highlight test utilization management strategies and coordinating efforts within a single system.
Attend It’s Not Just “My Way or The Highway”: Navigating The Standardization of Clinical Laboratory Operations Across Hospital Enterprises (43110) (53210) and learn about the various strategies for standardizing laboratory operations across an enterprise system. Harmonizing Reference Intervals – A Provincial Example (43111) (53211) will discuss implementation strategies as well as the pros and cons of implementing harmonized reference intervals, for both labs and vendors, and how this method was successfully implemented province-wide in Canada.
A personal favorite of Straseski’s is Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH): an Emerging Biomarker for the Assessment of Reproductive Function (42113) (52213). This session will describe how AMH is used to evaluate ovarian reserve, menopause prediction, and polycystic ovary syndrome. The speaker, Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich, PhD, will also cover the advantages and limitations of different analytical methods for AMH quantitation.
Brown Bags also will be presented on current hot topics such as biotin interference with immunoassays, clinical laboratories’ role in caring for transgender patients, B-type natriuretic peptide testing and neprilysin inhibitors, and testing body fluids, Straseski said.
These sessions are quickly selling out: Register online for your favorite Brown Bag when you register for the 69th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in San Diego July 30–Aug. 3.