Good morning, y'all. So this is not an official Society of Black Pathologists lecture, however, I still wanted to introduce our speaker, as well as the treasurer of the SPP. This is Dr. LaTanja Adams, who is not only part of the SPP, but a good friend of mine. She practices as a medical microbiologist at the VA Portland. And without further ado, the shoulders upon we stand a journey of notable black laboratory professionals. Good morning, thank you all for coming up and then being so patient while we get started today. Well, my name is Dr. LaTanja Adams. And as Nicole said, I'm the director of microbiology, I'm also do chemistry, support services, which is research, and also send out testing. And we'll just get started. So I have no financial relationships with any, any ineligible companies to disclose. And also to since I work at the VA, the views and opinions presented within this work are those of the author and does not represent the official positions of my employer or the US government. So our objectives today, it's to I would like to increase awareness of the achievements of black laboratory professionals, to emphasize the importance of diversity in the scientific community, to motivate aspiring laboratory professionals and pathologists, particularly of underrepresented backgrounds, stimulate any discussion regarding the importance of diversity, inclusion, and representation in laboratory professions. And lastly, just to highlight the excellence that excellence knows no boundaries. So the inspiration of this topic. So I think this is really nice is that, you know, it's the last talk and everyone's relaxed. And so you really can just sit back and enjoy learning. The inspiration of this topic. Usually I do something, you know, just to fortify my own knowledge. And around Black History Month, you hear about, you know, Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, etc. But I wanted for my own learning, who was in pathology that made a big difference? You know, specific like clinical pathology. And I put on Facebook, you know, like every day or so, someone that I researched and found that, you know, no one knew about her. And it got picked up and ASCB asked me to come do the talk. And since we are a organization of not just pathologists, but other laboratory professionals, I expanded the talk to see who's the first histotechnologist, that, you know, things of that sort. So we will be looking at, we're going to highlight pathologists and medical laboratory professionals. So we'll start with pathologists. Just some demographics here. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges in 2021, 63% of those active physicians are men, and the latter 37% are women. And when we look at that percentage broken down, 5.7% represents those that self-identify as black or African-American, 6.9 Hispanic or Latino, 1.3% were identified as multiple race, 1.4 one other, and it gets less and less after that. So that's just of active physicians. And when you look at within that 5.7% that are black and African-American, it's even smaller of pathologists. So start with just a brief history of pathology. So it was postulated that the field of pathology as its own specialty began around the end of the 15th century with the work of a Florentine physician named Antonio Benveni. He recorded the case histories and performed autopsies on his own patients. There are two big players in pathology, that is Karl von Rokotansky and Adolph Virchow. Rokotansky felt that disease states resulted from anomalies in blood, and he considered that, you know, with looking in the blood, that's where you found the source of all illnesses. He firmly believed that chemical pathologists will eventually resolve many of the problems and unknown entities in pathology. Virchow was regarded as the greatest figure of history of pathology, and he was a student of Johannes Muller, who was the source of both histology and cellular pathology. And during this time with these three individuals, that's where the microscope played a huge role in pathology. Beforehand, pathology was mainly gross organs that you saw that were analyzed after autopsy. So this was a, you know, pivoted area for pathology. So to get started, we'll begin with Dr. William Augustus Hinton. He was a pathologist and microbiologist, born in Chicago to free slaves from North Carolina. He got his Bachelor's of Science from Harvard and graduated with honors, and after that he spent several years teaching science at historically black colleges and universities. While continuing his own studies in bacteriology and physiology, before enrolling to Harvard Med School in 1909, he graduated, as I said, graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School in 1912. However, because of Jim Crow laws back then, he was barred from pursuing any careers in surgery. Since that, because of that, he pursued a field in pathology. And his words were that it was a career in which I would not have to compete with white physicians for patients. He cultivated relationships with other academic mentors. After his graduation, Dr. Richard Cabot, a dear friend and former professor of his, noted that he was determined to succeed without benefit of an internship, which was really needed for every doctor. One thing that I found fascinating in doing this talk is that how other pieces of pathology kind of like woven into this. So where have we heard of Cabot before? That seems familiar, doesn't it? So to make this a bit interactive, I had the polling set up, but I'm not sure how that would turn out, so I got a backup. I have this thing called Brain Breaks. So Dr. Richard C. Cabot made significant contributions in what field of medicine? Is it cardiology, hematology, surgery, or endocrinology? So the answer is hematology, yes. So you get a brain. So like I think I heard some mumblings, Cabot rings. So these are thin, red, violet-staining, thread-like strands in the shape of a loop or a figure eight. Basically what they represent is problems with abnormality of the production of red blood cells. You see this in cases of pernicious anemia, lead poisoning, and other disorders of erythropoiesis. So getting back to Dr. Hinton, instead of continuing traditional training, he taught serological techniques at Harvard's Wasserman Laboratory and also working part-time as a volunteer assistant at the Department of Pathology at Mass General. And his task was to perform autopsies on all the suspected patients who died of syphilis. In 1949, Hinton became the first African-American to be promoted to the rank of professor at Harvard University and was named clinical professor of bacteriology and immunology. In 1927, he developed the Hinton test. This is what he's most noted for. This was an improved flocculation test that detected syphilis. This was much more sensitive than the test at the time because it utilized beef heart extract antigen that was suspended in a glycerinated saline instead of a saline solution. This increased the sensitivity and was adopted for many years. And also after that, in 1936, the first medical textbook was published by him. And it was the first one by a black American called Syphilis and its Treatment. Forty years later, he was a lecturer and professor at Harvard, and in 1949, one year before his retirement, he was finally granted full professorship in bacteriology and immunology. Ordinarily, it takes eight to ten years. Internationally, he's known as an expert in the diagnosis and treatment of syphilis. And ASM, the American Society of Microbiology, has an award in his honor. It's the William A. Hinton Award for Advancement of a Diverse Community for Microbiologists. And nominees are those that contribute to the research and training of students from underrepresented communities. So another brain break. Dr. William Augustine Hinton was the Hinton of the Mueller-Hinton Auger Plate. Is that true or false? I think she had one back over there. So yes, it is false. And I thought this was pretty cool. All these years, so before I became a pathologist or went to medical school, I was a microtechnologist at a community hospital. And you know, all these years, you know, you have your Mueller-Hinton plate. You know, I didn't know what it was, you know, just some names. But then I'm like, wait a minute, this was the Hinton of the, well, isn't that cool? You know, and it was the daughter, it was Dr. Jane Hinton. She was a veterinary microbiologist, a pioneer in the study of bacterial antibiotic resistance. And she was a laboratory technician at Harvard and co-developed this plate with Dr. Mueller. And she was one of the first two black women to earn a degree of doctorate in veterinary medicine. And she was the daughter of William Augustus Hinton. So I thought that was pretty cool. Like this whole time, like this, you know, the black lady made this, you know, helped me make this plate. So I thought that was pretty neat. This lady right here, oh my goodness, Dr. Ruth Marguerite Easterling. She was what I've seen to be the first female pathologist, female black pathologist. And she was born in Georgetown, South Carolina in 1898, raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was the first black woman admitted to Tufts University School of Medicine in 1917. She went on to a successful career in pathology. And her accomplishments included works noted with Dr. Hinton in developing the Hinton test for syphilis and tuberculosis research with Dr. John B. West. And she also served on the staff of Tuskegee Veterans Administration in Alabama, director of laboratories in Cambridge City Hospital. And in 1975, there is a fund set in her honor for diversity in medical education at Tufts. So next we go on to Dr. Julian Herman Lewis. This one's a, I thought this was interesting as well. He was a pathologist, a son of a free slave. He earned his bachelor's and master's from the University of Illinois. He went on to earn his PhD in physiology and pathology from the University of Chicago via his dissertation on lipids and immunity. During his years in Chicago, he worked closely with Dr. Gideon Wells and Dr. Hectoan, who is where the Hectoan plate was discovered, our plate that we look for GI pathogens for salmonella and shigella, where there's a facility named after Hectoan. And that was at that facility that plate was discovered. It's thought that he is likely to be the first black American to hold an MD and a PhD degree. In 1920, he was hired as a pathologist at Providence Hospital in Chicago. This hospital was the first black owned hospital that was black owned and operated in the United States where he eventually became the chief pathologist. So back then during this time, there was no place for any African Americans to get training for anything. And what I found so phenomenal is that if it wasn't there, they made it happen. They created it. It was also a place for nurses to get, black nurses to get trained as well. In 1922, he was the first black associate professor at the University of Chicago. And what was interesting, his research was in the racial differences in relation to medicine and immunology. And he was the first pioneers to dispel racially based assumptions in medicine. So a lot of some of these things that we hear about where race is driving medicine comes from during slavery times where they experimented on slaves and on blacks and created their very limited assumptions. And somehow it's been weaving into what we do today. One of the examples is the EGFR that's currently being, that has been changed. They removed that factor. And it was based off of thinking that blacks had a higher creatinine level. So we have to put this factor in here. Unfortunately, it gave African Americans a higher GFR, which made it seem like they were doing better than what they really were. And that was based off of old, poor research done a long time ago. And so he was one of the first pioneers to say, hey, this isn't right. So what black physician established Provident Hospital in Chicago? Was it Dr. Augustus Hinton, Dr. Scholz, Dr. Benjamin Carson, or Dr. Daniel Hill Williams? Yes. I tried to make it obvious. So honestly, I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 12. And one of my, and I wanted to be a cardiologist. It was based off after learning about Dr. Daniel Williams when I was like 10. So he was the first black cardiologist. He performed the first successful heart surgery. Now, back in this time, people thought that performing surgery on the actual heart was inconceivable. And people have done surgeries on the pericardium, but not on the actual heart. And Dr. Daniel Hill Williams, his first patient, it was a gentleman that had probably, I think he got into a bar fight, and had damage to not only the pericardium, but the actual heart muscle. And this was the first surgery where he not only repaired the pericardium, but the pericardium and the actual heart. He established Provident Hospital in 1891. It was a teaching hospital for black physicians and nurses, and the first integrated hospital in Chicago. And it is still there to this day. And fun fact, our former first lady, Michelle Obama, was born there. So back to Dr. Lewis, in 1922, he published a paper on the frequency of ABO blood types in African-Americans in JAMA, and the distribution of blood types that differ between white and black people. And that was inaccurate to define what was normal based off of white subjects. And in 1942, he published his research titled The Biology of the Negro. And during this time, like I said, a lot of things were done on slaves. And it was done in a way to minimize the, to basically put black people in a poor light, to say that akin us to beast, akin us to just good for labor purposes, not, you know, that we couldn't think. And so there was a lot of fallacies put out there. And one of the things that he did was to dispel all of that. He was deeply interested in biological differences between the races, but he argued against the viewpoint that black people were biologically inferior, and that this, that was the narrative that was being portrayed during that time. This book is actually still in print. I've been reading it, and it's pretty fascinating. You know, he goes from head to toe, like every part of it, dispelling each fallacy that was put out there. Next we have Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller. He was a pathologist, neurologist, and psychiatrist. And what I found interesting, too, like when they went into pathology, they also had like other fields that they were a part of, which I thought was interesting. So Dr. Fuller, who was born in Monrovia, Liberia, to a numerical Liberian parents. His paternal grandfather, John Lewis Fuller, and his wife were slaves from Virginia. John Fuller was bought, and his enslaved wife, he bought his and his enslaved wife's freedom, and then they emigrated to Liberia. Years later, in 1893, Dr. Solomon Fuller completed his college education and medical degree at Boston University School of Medicine, and then afterwards, he went to Germany to study neurology. And then he returned to the States, and in 1919, he became full faculty at University School of Boston University School of Medicine, where he taught pathology. His significant contribution was working with Alois Alzheimer, and he's responsible for the associations between Alzheimer disease and amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. And this is a picture of that. And also the association between chronic alcoholism and neuropathology. Then we have Charles Richard Drew. He was a surgeon and transfusion medicine. He attended a school, medical school at McGill University in Montreal, because unfortunately, he was not able to attend school here due to the racial climate. And there he developed his interest in blood transfusions and properties of the blood. As a surgeon, he discovered that plasma can be preserved, or what we call banked, much longer than whole blood. And in 1935, he was appointed faculty instructor in pathology at Howard University. You'll get a brain for that, there you go. In 1938, Dr. Drew began graduate work at Columbia University, earning the degree of science in surgery with his doctoral thesis, Banked Blood, a study on blood preservation. It was an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques. From that research, improved blood storage techniques were derived, developed large scale blood banks in early World War II. And he was the director of the first blood bank project in Britain during World War II. In 1941, he was appointed director of the first American Red Cross blood bank. The blood bank supplied blood to US Army and Navy, who ruled that the blood of African Americans would be accepted at the time, but it had to be stored differently and stored separately from white blood. Dr. Drew objected to this exclusion of African-American blood from plasma-supplied networks as a practice that lacked scientific foundation. And because of not wanting to make that change, he resigned from that position. And they came out with campaigns. These are some of the campaigns that they came out. It's all the same to him. You don't have to do this. Unfortunately, this practice stayed and continued until 1950. So are there any questions about any of the pathologists before we move on to the medical other laboratory professionals? So this one was a bit more complicated, surprisingly, because just finding any history in the medical laboratory science field was hard to find, just history, period. But then trying to find more that were geared to African-Americans was a lot more complicated as well. But let's start with just some history of it, some demographics. So right now, according to the 2022 statistics, there are nearly 56,000 medical laboratory scientists that are employed in the US. 66.3% are women, 33.7% are men, and the average age is 44. And in this percentage, the breakdown for black and African-Americans is 10.8%. So a little history of it. So the earliest histories of MLS, CLS, began around the mid-1920s. But some say the profession began earlier than that. They say that it began around the American Revolution. During this time, there were limited career opportunities for women. This is about the time when women began to attend college after the Civil War. And it was the assumption that graduating with a degree was merely for self-fulfillment for women. They just wanted to better themselves as wives and mothers, which explains why you see such a preponderance of women in the field. Career opportunities were limited, as mostly males dominated the space where there was availability. But there was an epidemic that occurred during the 19th century around typhoid, tuberculosis, diphtheria. This created a new need for testing and inpatient care. So in the early 1900s, having a laboratory or even having a hospital with a laboratory was considered a luxury. And there was an increased demand for pathologists in the big sciences. So mainly, the men went towards the big sciences and what was considered the big sciences and left to rest for that. It was a great opportunity for women to really step in and show their worth in this field and show what they can do instead of just being thought of as just wanting to fulfill themselves as a wife or a mother. One of the first that I could say that would fit in this box, his name, well, it wasn't even his name. They called him Onesimus. And I tried to pronounce that correctly, Onesimus. And sadly, his name and the exact date of birth and death is unknown. But what is known is that he was an African man who was instrumental in the mitigation and the impact of smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1706, he was enslaved and was given to a New England Puritan minister named Cotton Mather, who renamed him Onesimus. And the name means useful, helpful, profitable. It's the name of the first century slave in the Bible. So he described to Mather the process of inoculation performed on him in Africa. And what was documented is that people take the juice of smallpox, cut the skin and put a drop in. This was a practice done in sub-Saharan people, enslaved colonial people from many regions of Africa. Slave communities in America continue to use that practice of inoculation. Over time, it was called, because it was related to smallpox, virulation. And with this process, only 1% to 2% people died from intentionally infecting themselves with it versus 30% who contracted smallpox naturally. And as the process developed, they created this tool here to breach the skin. And then they would take the scab, they would take vesicular fluid, or they would take the scab and put it into a powder and put it into this breach of the skin. Then you would then have a reaction, and then you'd heal from it. And then you were considered immunized, so to speak. And you would get a milder, localized infection with induced immunity. This practice is not continued to this day. And that's what gave the precursor to vaccinations with cowpox with Jynner. Next, we have Dr. Harold Amos. He's considered the first black microbiologist from New Jersey. He was born to Howard and Iola Johnson. Iola Johnson's mother was adopted, and it was educated by a Philadelphia Quaker family. And this family really had an impression upon Dr. Amos. They would give him books on sciences, microbiology, and that's what influenced his path to go into microbiology. In 1941, he was summa cum laude in biology and in chemistry. In 1946, he began earning his master's degree. And all this was done at Harvard, 47, he got his master's and the first black faculty at Springfield College. 52, he was the first black American to earn a PhD from the Division of Medical Sciences from Harvard Medical School on his thesis of the infectivity of herpes virus. He then went on to receive a Fulbright Scholarship and joined the Harvard Medical Faculty in 1954. 68, he was the chairman of the bacteriology department. In 1974, he was a presidential advisor to Richard Nixon and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 75, he was part of the Maude and Lynn Presley Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and received emeritus status in 88. Went on to be awarded the National Academy of Sciences and Public Welfare Medal. And in 2000, the Harvard Centennial Medal. So he was very profound in the field of microbiology. We have another brain break. Who was the first black American to receive a PhD in microbiology from North Carolina State University in 1978? Is it Dr. Lizzie Harrell, Dr. Seuss Von Huyken, Dr. Kimberly Stewart, or Dr. Christopher Franklin Jackson? Okay, let's see. Dr. Harrell. So I was fortunate enough to actually work with her doing a journal club for ASM. Very kind lady, very profound individual. In 1978, she was the first black American female to get a PhD in microbiology from North Carolina State. The full-time black American faculty member in basic science department at Duke University. But she's a phenomenal woman. Oh my God, you know, just speaking with her, it's kind of like I'm running into a speaker sitting down with Dr. Upton. Those who've had the fortunate experience to sit down, Dr. Upton is a phenomenal one and it's the same feeling and the interaction that I got with Dr. Harrell. Her research was around emerging antibiotic-resistant bacteria and for bringing molecular microbiology techniques into the Duke Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. She sat on several committees, even the ones on the FDA. She really is passionate about mentorship and mentorship and getting sort of what we're doing here with DEI efforts before it was even a name for it, she was already doing things like that. In December 2011, the Duke University Board of Trustees granted her emeritus status and she still continues as a research emeritus for molecular genetics and microbiology. Next we have Dr. Vivian Thomas. He was born in New Iberia, Louisiana. In 1929, after working as an orderly in a private infirmary to raise money for college, he enrolled as a pre-medical student at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College. Unfortunately, this was during a time of the stock market crash in 1929 and he was forced to drop out. In 1930, he took a position at Vanderbilt University as a laboratory assistant with Dr. Alfred Bailoff. He quickly learned and performed several surgical techniques and chemical determinations that were needed for experiments and he calculated the results. He learned how to keep precise records. He managed the laboratory while Bailoff focused on clinical and administrative duties and he also designed his own surgical instruments, which was phenomenal. That's him and he's with the assistants and then right here, they're operating on a laboratory dog at Vanderbilt. From that experience, anything, he just was very innovative that whatever tools existed, if they weren't sufficient, he just made some more that he thought would be worth it. I thought that was interesting because you're just making stuff. No FDA needed, no validation, no none of that. Thomas' abilities as a lab and surgical assistant and research associate were of the highest quality and when Bailoff was asked to come to Johns Hopkins, he asked Dr. Thomas to come with him. He joined his surgical team and helped develop the procedure for what's known as the Blue Baby operation. Thomas was the first black American to walk the halls of Johns Hopkins in a lab coat and it was so crazy, for lack of better term. Even though he supervised the surgical laboratories for over 35 years, he was paid far less than his Caucasian counterparts that had the same position. There were times that he was forced to work at the parties of these doctors, physicians and technologists as a bartender and as a waiter. It's kind of like we're here associating with one another, but I got to go over to the Queen Mary to serve you guys. That's something. And then you got to go back and make some more tools for them to use. It really says a lot about the resilience of the people during that time. So going on to correcting of Tetralogy of Fallot, he recreated the abnormal heart structure in animal models and then he demonstrated how to fix it. Before you start on it, he created it outside of the human, in the animal, then got the tools and everything to fit. And he did all this in less than two years, which was phenomenal. And so this was the first human operation here where Thomas stood. So here's everyone else and he's standing behind them all, directing them what to do and guiding their... So this is Dr. Blalock right here. Wait a minute, right there. And he's basically guiding his hands and telling him what to do throughout the complicated technique of surgery. He trained many surgeons at Johns Hopkins, mentored many black students, and in 68, 69, he was honored with this portrait that stands there to this day that hangs alongside of Dr. Blalock and other parts, department surgery heads. In 1976, he was appointed instructor in surgery and through 76 to 85, he was brought on medical school faculty and they ended up giving him a, what's called the Honorary Doctor of Laws at Johns Hopkins University, or LLD. So I thought that was interesting. So it's kind of like, we can't give you an MD, but we'll give you this sort of thing that we can loophole and call you a doctor. If you want to know more about his story, it's a movie out called Something that the Lord Made that you can rent that stars most deaf that portrays Dr. Vivian Thomas. So that was, even though these people are significant, very significant, I still couldn't scratch the itch of trying to find those that represented the technologists in the lab and in history. So I gave up and I said, well, let's look at who's down, who's happening now, who's doing good things now. Let's celebrate and give people their flowers while they're here. So I like to start with Dana Powell Baker. Dana Powell is, she's a manager for academic partnerships with Association of Public Health Laboratories, APHL, we have all heard of it. Her areas of expertise include higher education, learning and development, laboratory operations, interpersonal education, healthcare simulation. This lady is very busy. Currently she's pursuing her doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction, and more so diversity in curriculum studies at the University of South Carolina. We talked about what she did in her expertise. She's also an advocate for everything DEI, anything about promoting and bringing in recruitment efforts. She serves as adjunct faculty at the Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, also at Kansas City Medical Center, co-recipient of the 2022 ASCP Presidential Award, and various leadership roles in ASCP, ASELS, and SBP as well. Next Tiffany Channer, in 2007 she got her BS in Clinical Laboratory Sciences at Stony Brook University. She worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in blood bank and transfusion. She has a nine-year tenure as blood bank education lead medical technologist, level three. And she also serves as a safety officer, which I thought was pretty cool because I'm all about safety. Go OSHA. Yeah. But also too, she's an advocate, huge advocate in the community outreach and education. She recruits for MLS profession as the ASCP member at large, board member, and past chair of the Council of Laboratory Professionals. She too has had numerous awards and accolades that wouldn't even fit. She's also serves as a quality systems manager at a community hospital that she's at right now. And when looking at her and speaking with her, one of her quotes that she comes to is education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world, Nelson Mandela. And she's so correct with that. Last, we have Tawana Wilson, MBA of MLS, this powerhouse in the field. She's a laboratory leader, author, podcast host, and dedicated mentor. And this was done way before we knew that she was going to be a recipient of the Vivian Penn Award. She, in 2004, is a generalist in a high volume reference lab. Numerous awards and accolades, 2023 diversity MBA media top 100 under 50, emerging leaders list. Currently, she's a system technical director of chemistry at Compunet Clinical Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio. In addition, she's a founder and president of Trendy Elite Coaching and Consulting. Her mission is connect organizations with diverse range of skilled personnel. She's also an author of Some Leaders Wear Lab Coats. And what I do love is her imagery here. You know, you can't see what you don't, you know, you can't be what you can't see. You know, so I think that and I love like the shadow in the background is like a cape like a superhero. I think that's very clever. And she also has her podcast host of elaborate topics. Now for our last brain break, which black laboratory professional has a scholarship and the honor within the Society of Black Pathologists? And if you're listening, you would know the answer. So anyone, holler it out. Yes. And so with that, everyone gets a brain. Brains for all. So this phenomenal individual, Dr. Vivian Penn, she's a pathologist. In 1967, she was the only black woman to graduate in her graduating class from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. 1970, faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine as Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. 1981, full-time director of the Office of Research on Women and Health at the NIH. And first black woman to chair the academic pathology department in the United States. She was also appointed the first full-time director at the NIH, I just said that, inducted as a fellow of the academic American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1995, the Elizabeth Blackwell Award from American Medical Women's Association and elected to the Institute of Medicine. In 2011, she served as the Senior Scientist Emeritus at Fogarty International Center. Also her work at the NIH is momentous. She ensures women's health, that was a priority, equity among women's health, quality of health care for all. And despite being retired, she still continues mentoring new chairs through their senior fellows divisions of the Association of Pathology Chairs. And as I stated, there is a word of honor through the Society of Black Pathologists that our recent IWANA won this year. So in summary, I hope everyone has been enlightened to the achievements and contributions of black laboratorians that were discussed today. Appreciate the importance of diversity in the scientific community, has been motivated to dive further in the field of pathology and in medical laboratory sciences. I'm also willing to continue the discussion regarding the importance of diversity, inclusion, and representation in the laboratory professions. And also realize that there's no limitation to the greatness of our excellence. And those are my references. And I always say representation matters, and thank you.

Dr. LaTanja Adams

Black laboratory professionals

pathologists

diversity in science

historical contributions

underrepresented groups

educational session