Nurturing Our Laboratories

- This is Lab Medicine Rounds, a curated podcast for physicians, laboratory professionals and students. I'm your host, Justin Kreuter, a transfusion medicine pathologist and assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic. Today we're rounding with Alex Klobassa, assistant supervisor for Transfusion Medicine in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at Mayo Clinic to discuss nurturing our laboratories. Thanks for joining us today, Alex.

- Yeah, thank you for having me. Definitely excited to get your invite. - Hey, I think you are doing wonderful things and I wanted to kind of bring this forward in, in this, this venue here with our audience and kind of kick around some of the ideas that you've had, experiences that you've had and, and what you've learned. Maybe we can start off with, you know, why, why can it be a challenge to nurture our laboratory team?

- Yeah. Ironically, I find this to be one of the more challenging questions that you have, but I think there's always just logistical things that come up, such as making both the time and the space for creative thinking.

I think oftentimes in the nature of our work, you know, the innovative ideas are really coming from, you know, the different problems that we, that we face, and then trying to make those ideas into actual projects and then actually see them implement into our, into our daily work. You can face a lot of different things such as, you know, scheduling and finding both the resources and the subject matter experts.

So I think once you find the people who are invested in those things, you can overcome a lot of those barriers. But just building those relationships and listening, - I hear you about kind of paying attention to who your, who your people are that you can tap into about the logistics issues. I, this really resonates with me about how do we kind of create time and space, and then how do we keep track of things.

It seems like, you know, for many of us, I flag my emails if I need to respond to this, but then it just kind of gets far enough down that I don't go back far enough to see them. How, how do you keep track of these ideas, right. You know, capture these and if you're, maybe something isn't right for right now.

Like we're, you know, around the holidays people are probably busy with that. Maybe a good idea gets brought up. You know, we all often talk about putting something in the parking lot, but how do we not forget about the back lot? - Man, I don't know. I think I've started trying to use the different teams features that we have. So a lot of electronic tools and solutions.

I think the using different channels and creating different groups, and then Outlook calendar is definitely my, my magic secret wand, because I will put things on there a couple months from now and then it will remind you and I'll be like, okay, yeah, I gotta look back at my notes and see where we're at on this and reach out to people and, and get it back going off the ground. - Mm. So with the electronic solutions there, I'm, I'm sensing this, you know, organization that you have about you.

- Yeah, definitely. - So in, in keeping those things organized, I guess that's also, you said, looking back at your notes, how do you keep those organized? Are those also electronic for you, or do you have some system of making sure you're kind of keeping those things in order?

- I have both a OneNote that I like to call my work diary, and it has all different sorts of tabs and different notes from different meetings, and that one's just for me, but then also having, you know, the teams where the groups are, so those meeting minutes and saving them there so everyone can have that information.

I think there's a part of it that's personal organization and then there's part of it that's kind of that team organization and, and making sure that that information is accessible to everyone. - Mm, I see. So you've been working with a couple of different teams over the years and have, I think, kind of been perfecting your approach to things and definitely see you as a fellow lifelong learner. Yes. What have you learned about, about nurturing a laboratory team?

What have been some kind of key takeaways as you look back on the last couple of years? - A lot. Probably too much to cover today, but I think first and foremost just, you know, realizing that things don't need to be perfect to implement something. And oftentimes it's just your, your first draft. Once you get it going, it's just, you're gonna be able to keep building on that. And because you bring other people in who are excited about it, it's just gonna keep getting better.

So learning to be okay with being uncomfortable sometimes and learning to be okay with it, not not being exactly as you planned is, is really important, I think, to keep, to keep things moving forward and encouraging kind of that creative space. - I, I like that when you say, you know, perfect is not necessary probably for a good amount of our listeners, right?

The medical community, you know, particularly in lab medicine, you know, that that might kind of run counter to, seems like the ethos of, of lab medicine of, you know, we're always striving to, you know, always be meeting the patient's needs appropriately, getting the correct test results out. I imagine that you've run into some resistance when you've tried to get and and just like, okay, it's this first draft. Let's see how this goes. How, how have you navigated that?

And you know, maybe if, you know, maybe that's leadership that was kind of voicing concern, maybe that was colleagues in the laboratory voicing concern. How do you work through that and get people kind of on board with let's, let's do, let's see how draft one looks? - Yeah, I think first and foremost, just reassuring people that we will circle back to this. You know, we can celebrate both our success and we can celebrate, you know, lessons learned and that we will actually follow up on them.

And I think that actions kind of speak a lot louder than words sometimes.

So sometimes if you can schedule a meeting, you know, proactively for two months in advance and call it the check-in meeting or devote that time far out in the future, just anticipating that there will be things that you can improve on and bringing, again, bringing that information back and keeping the most open line of communication that you, you can, and just being really honest about where it's at and where you want it to go.

- That's brilliant about putting that meeting in place, because I imagine that gives you instant credibility, right? Like you put it, the meeting on the books, people see that you are going to circle back to that and it seems like that probably can quell a lot of things. And then also I imagine that gets that off of your to-do list as well. Yes. - Well that's my reminder, so it's a double win.

- Oh, fantastic. When you say, you know, I guess we've kind of been maybe beating around the bush a little bit about what, what you have done and, and why we're kind of talking and having this conversation today. Would you mind sharing for our audience, like what are a couple of the things that you have kind of worked on over the years in our, in our laboratories to kind of nurture the team? - Yeah, I think two of the bigger things are a book club.

So I was really fortunate to be a part of a divisional leadership program and in that class and through that program I met people from all across the division and formed different relationships. And at the end of it, one of my fellow like participants in the program reached out and asked if I would be interested in kind of starting a divisional book club.

And so just sitting down one-on-one with that person who I was not in the same work unit as me, but seeing both of our ideas and how we could bring people together once a month to talk about leadership beyond the program was really fun. And I think it's kind of evolved over the past couple years. So we just finished our third book and we have about 15 to 20 participants each year that meet once a month to discuss a certain chapter of the reading.

We have, you know, myself and one other facilitator currently, and we try to provide the questions ahead of time so that people can kind of start mulling over things, but they're not all encompassing questions. They're just meant to get the, you know, the conversation started. And so again, being able to see that from year one to year three, there's been things that we've changed and there's been things that we've kept the same.

So just, you know, continuing to build off of those things and getting new people involved every single year has been extremely rewarding. And then I think the, the other thing that I've recently been working on is a simulation center project. So that one is more specific to my work unit, but we were kind of having a lot of problems and challenges with our emergency response. So in the nature of our work, we need to respond very quickly and rapidly and that can be stressful at times.

And we learned that our hospital has a simulation center, so bringing together a team within my work unit and, you know, being able to see how we could utilize that to go into a creative and safe space to practice an emergency stress response has been a really cool experience. And there has been a ton of challenges with that project and since we've had the right people on the team, we've been able to overcome 'em.

- That's awesome. Let me just give you a public shout out for your questions in the book club are phenomenal, you know? Yeah. So for our listeners, Alex is, I wish I had it in front of me with some examples, but these questions that she is sharing ahead of time are the kind of questions where, you know, really cau causes you to hit pause and, and think for a bit about these things.

And then also the questions I feel like really have the slant of not, you know, some factual kind of recall over what was read, but like, how does this apply in your life or practice? And so I, I find it a really interesting question set. I think that's part of your secret for so much success and participation over the years. I also imagine that's probably one of the projects that for our listeners is probably very applicable for them.

And so you mentioned that, you know, some things have stayed the same and, and yet you've changed some things. And I was wondering if you wouldn't mind kind of elaborating for our, our audience, like what, what did you keep the same? 'cause that seemed to be just really kind of fundamental and then like what, what did you change and, and how did you go about that? - Yeah, I think creating those questions ahead of time and sending them out.

I am very fortunate to have a really great co-facilitator with me. So we kind of have a mini book club prior to the book club coming up with all of those really good questions. So I definitely can't take credit for all of those, but sending those out ahead of time really helps people. And it's always been really great because you see people coming and they've not only thought about those questions, but they've thought about other things.

So it sparks so much more discussion and it's really free flowing. It's not always like, okay, this question, now this question, it, it creates a discussion instead of just going through the motions of these, this is the content that we read. I think that the things that we've changed is we've really tried to engage people in, in the book club in the sense that in person is so much more natural to have conversation, but the first year we did the book club, we were still going through Covid.

So trying to transition from that hybrid format to a fully in-person format, you know, is challenging because we don't wanna limit our participants either who maybe work offsite or remotely. - Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I, I have a huge challenge with that these, these days, especially as like, some meetings are in person, other ones are, are online, and every now and then I, I get confused over where I'm supposed to be.

- Yes. - So, you know, I I, I really appreciate kind of how, what you've shared with us today. I wonder if we could kind of close with, if you don't mind sharing what is in that back lot for you?

You know, what, what is kind of a, a future opportunity that kind of has been sitting in your, your mind about a future opportunity to improve our lab team? - Yeah. I think, I can't take full credit for many of the things that I've been involved in, but honestly, I don't know what the next idea is. I think it's probably hidden somewhere in a conversation that hasn't been had yet and that a bunch of people will get excited about.

I think that some of the things that our department is doing as far as bringing problem solving to the forefront of our lab with these huddles, I'm really excited about that. I think that that is going to create a lot of ideas that we can turn into different projects and different things that we can involve people in.

But moving forward, just building on the book club and the simulation center and then taking advantage of the things that come out of this frontline problem solving approach that we're heading towards. - Well, Alex, I think in your, in your answer there, I really hear, you know, this, you know, your strong sense of really this servant leadership, right?

Like the next idea for our team is not the idea that is in your head, but the idea you bring up that the next I great idea for our team is in a future conversation. Yes. I, I think that is a spot on insight that our listeners can kind of take back with them and think about. Going back to the top of the interview, you were talking about cultivating these relationships and how key that is. - Yes, definitely. - We're rounding, we've been rounding. Let me start off.

We've been rounding with Alex Blasa, thanks for being here today with us, Alex. - Yes. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a lot of fun. - And to all of our listeners, thank you for joining us today. We invite you to share your thoughts and suggestions via email to MCL [email protected]. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and until our next rounds together, we encourage you to continue to connect lab medicine and the clinical practice through educational conversations.