As part of this year’s Biomedical Science Day celebrations on Thursday 20 June, we have asked a hospital in each of the four nations to take the lead in promoting the excellent work of our profession. Each hub will showcase a laboratory and inform the public, patients and other hospital staff about their work at the heart of healthcare.
Northern Ireland
Royal Victoria Hospital will be launching its brand new cellular pathology laboratory. Joined by IBMS President Alison Geddis and IBMS Chief Executive Jill Rodney, Governance and Quality Manager Shauna McAuley will lead a tour to showcase the new laboratory to
a select group of VIPs and media and then the tours and celebrations will be open to the wider public.
Shauna said: “For Biomedical Science Day we are going to be introducing our new cellular pathology laboratory and service. The Belfast trust cellular pathology department is the amalgamation of Belfast City Hospital and Royal Victoria Hospital cellular pathology services into the newly-refurbished Institute of Pathology on the Royal Victoria Hospitals site. The cellular pathology department implemented a new managed equipment and service contract in June 2018 to maximise a Lean working model, providing smart automation, rapid processing and specimen tracking.
“The department will also be introducing digital pathology towards the end of 2019. This modernisation ensures that the highest quality pathology support is given to the clinical teams managing patient outcomes.”
Alongside the laboratory’s launch, Royal Victoria Hospital will be bustling with biomedical science activities. They will be presenting their Spirit of Biomedical Science Award, presenting a series of “a patient I’ll never forget” lectures, hosting a Harvey’s Gang stand and supporting a “living labs” stand in the foyer.
If you’re based in Belfast, don’t miss the opportunity to join in the celebrations. It promises to be one of the biggest promotions of biomedical science yet.
Scotland
Almost a decade into Scotland’s 2010-11 drive to consolidate their cervical screening services into a network-based consortia, University Hospital Monklands will be showcasing how the model has enabled the adoption of new technologies and facilitated a national managed service contract for the delivery of services.
IBMS Deputy Chief Executive Sarah May will attend a special laboratory tour for VIPs and media and then the tours and celebrations will open to other professional groups.
The tours will focus on following a sample through the full cervical screening process, revealing biomedical science at work.
IBMS President Elect, Advanced Practitioner in Cervical Cytology and Senior Chief Biomedical Scientist at Monklands hospital, Allan Wilson, said: “Biomedical Science Day is a great opportunity to celebrate the role of our profession in healthcare. Here at Monklands, our consolidated screening programme has been a great success and we look forward to raising awareness of screening services and encouraging more women to attend.”
If you’re based in Airdrie, make sure to check in with the cellular pathology staff and see how you can get involved in the wider celebrations going on in Monklands hospital on the day.
England
Six months on, we are going to celebrate the role of the world’s first fully digital pathology laboratory at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. The laboratory has now scanned over 250,000 slides that contain up to 200,000 dots per inch (DPI). If printed at a mere 300 DPI, these images would be the same size as a tennis court. The step-by-step process that each slide goes through has been rigorously tested and received ISO15189 accreditation, laying the foundations for national guidelines on using and implementing digital pathology.
IBMS Executive Head of Marketing and Membership Lynda Rigby and IBMS Council member Joanna Andrew will be joining Chloe Knowles, Biomedical Scientist lead for Digital Pathology at St James’s hospital, who will be heading a VIP tour of the laboratory and discussing the future of digital pathology, how going digital is a huge change management project and how it is the wider laboratory workforce who make it succeed or fail.
She said: “Implementing digital pathology is a good opportunity to streamline the entire laboratory workflow to make it more efficient. Looking at the laboratory workflow from start to finish can identify areas that can be leaner, and eventually absorb the additional time and free up the resources required to scan slides. A good example is slide archiving and retrieval, and MDT preparation. Pathologists can have instant access to an image for an MDT, instead of waiting for the glass slide to be retrieved from file. This has a direct effect on laboratory staff who file slides, as their time can be used more efficiently for other tasks in the laboratory. It also has benefits for the multidisciplinary team meetings, as more time can be spent discussing individual patients’ needs.” Alongside the tour of the laboratory, St James’s hospital will be hosting a stand in the foyer with a host of activities including virtual reality tours, digitally scanned images of vegetables and a sock chromosome game.
Wales
University Hospital of Wales will be launching its brand new biochemistry laboratory. Joined by IBMS Deputy Head of Education Jocelyn Pryce and IBMS Council member Helen Archer, staff will be leading a launch tour for VIPs and media to showcase their new and existing facilities. The tours and celebrations will then be opened to the public, patients and other healthcare professionals.
Nigel Roberts, Laboratory Service Manager for Medical Biochemistry, Immunology and Toxicology, is proud to be on the ground at one of the four Biomedical Science Day hubs and is looking forward to opening the laboratory doors to a curious public.
He said: “We are looking forward to promoting and celebrating the valuable work that biomedical scientists and other laboratory staff put into supporting clinical teams in the treatment and diagnosis of patients, and showcasing the excellent work we undertake for the NHS in Wales. We are also promoting biomedical sciences as an alternative NHS career choice to medicine and nursing.”
University Hospital of Wales will also be hosting stands in the atrium, “follow the sample” laboratory tours for schools and some “come and meet a scientist” Q&A events. If you are based in Cardiff, make sure you get involved and show your support.
If you want your department or hospital to celebrate Biomedical Science Day, but don’t know where to start, there are lots of event ideas and resources for you at BiomedicalScienceDay.com