As I move more actively towards
my retirement from my university career, I find myself thinking about what I have enjoyed doing the most under the university banner.
One
of my most significant mentors talked regularly about university activity as being like a
three-legged chair; with the legs being education, research and outreach. At its best, university life is inherently
unstable, but if one is active in all three aspects, the chair can remain intact, but if one of the three legs is ignored or broken, the whole university experience will assuredly falls apart. I have always seen the wisdom in this and have
spent my career ensuring that I am engaged in all three, to the extent
possible, all the time.
For me, I think the piece that I have always
enjoyed the most has been outreach both inside and outside the university confines.
Putting on conferences and
workshops is a big part of outreach and education. Attending conferences is a big part of education
and research because conferences and workshops can be the cornerstone of new
ideas and new knowledge. Combining the two becomes a triple-win
experience.
So this October 23 we will be continuing
with our tradition of October Quality Conferences, on the theme: Medical
Laboratory Quality Improvement: Knowing Your Customers.
This may seem to be a unusual
theme for a department of pathology but for Laboratory Medicine knowing and
understanding who is your customer is vitally important.
Over the past two decades healthcare has put
the banner on the wall “We are Committed to Patient-Centred Care” but for too many these
are only words. Listening and discussing
with those who have actually attached actions to the words is a day well spend.
So we will be talking about
technology assisted satisfaction monitoring, and hearing from laboratories that
have moved from theory to practice. We
will be hearing about Kano and Service Excellence and how this can be applied as
another step forward in improvement.
There are a few spots not yet
finalized. If you have some thoughts let
me know. I don't promise paying your way to Vancouver to attend and present, but I can guarantee we will listen.
This is not our first Quality Conference, but we will be trying out something new (for us).
Coming to Vancouver in the
age of expensive airfares and cities with choking street congestion can be
difficult to justify, even if there is a really interesting show to see. So this year we are planning to provide streaming
video for those unable to physically attend. It will not provide all the same experiences with full and open dialogue, but you will still be a part of the experience.
For those interested, keep
your eye on: http://polqm.med.ubc.ca/2018-polqm-conference/ or better still go there now and register at the early-bird rate.
