Abstract
UKMedLab22, hosted by the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (ACB), was held at the Royal College of Pathologists, London, between the 7th and 9th November 2022. This was the first in person conference held by the association in nearly three years and was therefore cause for celebration as peers came back together and others, notably trainees, met in person for the first time.
There were other ‘firsts’ to celebrate. The first ACB Microbiology training day was held alongside the Biochemistry training day; this attracted 26 delegates and received excellent feedback.
The first Impact Award was presented: this is the first award open to all members of the profession and the first that can be submitted by a group. A thought-provoking and inspiring talk on ‘The National Alkaptonuria Centre – making a difference through innovation and excellence’ was given by Prof Ranganath Lakshminarayan, Dr Nicolas Sireau and Dr James Gallagher. These talks described the disease process, advances in clinical treatment provided by the Centre and the on-going research into this debilitating condition and the impact this has on the patients and their families all made possible by collaboration between the laboratory, the patients, the AKU Society and the University.
In other highlights of the meeting, the Transatlantic Award, presented by Dr Shannon Haymond, President of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), gave a detailed insight into the ways that Clinical Laboratorians can build data literacy and analytical skills to utilise the data produced by the laboratory in a smarter way. The International Award Lecture, given by Prof Tomriz Ozben, highlighted the EFLM Green Labs initiative and the emerging importance of sustainability in clinical laboratories. The Foundation award presented by Dr Judith Strachan gave a fabulous overview of FIT testing and the challenges that have been faced from its inception through to present day.
The ACB Medal Award is always a popular session as a platform for those in training to showcase their work. The topics discussed within this session ranged from highly specialised projects to those looking to improve more routine problems faced day-to-day. First place was awarded to Bryony Hickton for her talk on ‘Metabolic Profiling of the Urine Metabolome in Alkaptonuria’ and runner up to Rebecca Lo for her talk on ‘Method Validation of Post-Mortem Vitreous Humour Biochemistry Analysis’.
Other parallel sessions included Build back with labs, Future biomarkers, Future delivery of lipid services and the role of Laboratory Medicine, Maintaining quality in the changing face of service delivery, Innovations in cancer, How the laboratory can contribute to net zero, Interactive Clinical cases and Past, present and future of renal medicine, which were attended by 217 participants over the 2 days.
The National Audit meeting was also hosted during the conference, and this meeting was well attended with 54 attendees and covered the important topics of thyroid function tests in pregnancy and in children, to supplement the National audit presentation on thyroid function tests in paediatrics and pregnancy. National audits were also presented on FIT testing, primary aldosteronism/adrenal vein sampling, and a clinical presentation on primary aldosteronism. Local and regional audits were presented throughout the day’s programme.
Over 100 posters were presented at the meeting and the abstracts are published as an online supplement to this journal.
A number of Poster and Audit awards were also made during the Conference:
Clinical Cases Poster Prizes: 1st Carrie Chadwick ‘A rare case demonstrating the importance of paraneoplastic antibody testing’, 2nd Katherine Onions ‘Non-Ketotic hyperglycaemia’.
Audit Poster Prizes: 1st Sarah Guest ‘Response to AKI warning stages in a Primary Care population’, 2nd Patricia Woodley ‘The use of BD Barricor in reducing haemolysis in ED’.
Interactive Clinical Case Presentation Prizes: 1st Susan Oddy ‘Getting to the heart of the matter’, 2nd Niamh Horton ‘Mind the gap’.
National Audit Meeting Poster Prizes 1st Sarah Blampied ‘Is this fT4 normal’, 2nd Cerys March ‘Clinical audit/evaluation of the placental growth factor service introduced in 2020 against NICE DG23 and the Trust pre-eclampsia pathway’.
The UKMedLab conference theme will continue into the future bringing together elements of training, science, leadership and management. The re-establishment of face-to-face conferences will once again facilitate professional engagement, networking and enhanced collaboration with industry partners. UKMedLab 23 will celebrate 70 years of the ACB and will be held in Leeds in June.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental Material - UKMedLab2022 Conference – Building Back
Supplemental Material for UKMedLab2022 Conference – Building Back by Sarah Robinson and Bernie Croal in Annals of Clinical Biochemistry
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The success of the UKMedLab22 conference was dependant on the input from a number of individuals across the ACB office and Executive teams, the organising committee, the speakers, the delegates and the sponsors.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Guarantor
Sarah Robinson.
Contributorship
Written by Sarah Robinson and Bernie Croal.
Supplemental material
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