SEQC Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine

SPANISH SOCIETY OF LABORATORY MEDICINE

- The conference included micro-workshops to acquire the necessary skills for efficient and assertive communication in the workplace

- How to get the most out of the residency period and assert oneself professionally, as well as disseminating the facilities and importance of having access to external, national or international scientific exchanges, among the topics addressed

- Encouraging the participation of residents in the different committees or working groups or collecting and disseminating residents' concerns and needs, among the current lines of work of the SEQC^ML Committee of Residents and Young Scientists

Madrid, 21st February 2023 - The Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEQC^ML) has successfully held its Conference for Residents and New Clinical Laboratory Specialists, which took place in Seville last Friday, February 10. The great novelty of this second edition, organized by the Commission of Residents and Young Scientists of the SEQC^ML , was the development of training micro-workshops in the field of professional communication to acquire the necessary skills to transmit messages in an efficient and assertive manner.

The conference was welcomed by the deputy managing director of the South Health Management Area of Seville, Rocio del Castillo, and the medical director, Jose Antonio Sanchez, who were accompanied in the presentation by the president of SEQC^ML, Dr. Antonio Buño. The head of the Clinical Analysis Service of the Hospital Universitario Virgen de Valme, Maria del Mar Viloria, also participated in the organization and presentation.

Through different talks, the aim was to help residents and new laboratory specialists to get the most out of their residency period and how to assert themselves professionally. In this sense, Dr. Antonio Buño shared a series of tips on how to face a fundamental period of their professional development such as specialized training. "The aim is to explain the competencies they should develop and the complementary training they can undertake during this period, so as to help them improve their training and enable them to have better future prospects," Dr. Buño indicated.

Another objective was to emphasize how interesting and enriching it is to go outside the laboratory service and do external rotations, whether in Spain or abroad. In addition to explain how to find the destination center and what grants are available and can be applied for to alleviate the extra financial burden of these trips.

More in detail, the member of the Residents and Young Scientists Commission of the SEQC^ML, Dr. Blanca Fabre, has conveyed in the talk, "How to make the most of the residency. Fellowships national/international external rotation", the importance of doing an external rotation: "Recently, I have had the opportunity to do a stay in the United States where I have deepened in cardiac biomarkers with Prof. Fred Apple. This stay will allow me to obtain my doctoral PhD with International Mention. This has been possible thanks to the José Luis Castaño-SEQC^ML Foundation's international external rotation grants, which cover all travel and accommodation expenses".

She also stressed the importance of the residents enhancing their strengths, but also reinforcing their weaknesses. To do this, according to resident Blanca Fabre, "we have to get out of our comfort zone. I think it is important to get to know other clinical laboratories to see other ways of working and also to appreciate what we have".

Workshop on communication in the professional environment

In addition to the lectures, a series of micro-workshops were held during the conference to enable new professionals to acquire the necessary skills for effective communication in the workplace. According to the president of the SEQC^ML Residents and Young Scientists Commission and coordinator of the Conference, Dr. Julia Maroto García, "this year we wanted to make a workshop more applicable to the day-to-day work of all professionals (residents and physicians), and useful throughout their whole professional career. The main objective is to learn how to transmit in the best way what they want to communicate, we want them to learn to cope in the different situations that arise in daily routine and in other not so everyday situations".
Thus, the physician and member of the Residents and Young Scientists Commission of the SEQC^ML , Dr. Aleix Fabregat, stated in the micro-workshop, "Efficient communication: keys to influence and have an impact", that the main purpose is to become aware of the importance of knowing how to communicate efficiently in our daily lives. "To do this, we reviewed the factors that influence oral communication, highlighting the role of non-verbal communication, which has a greater relevance than the words themselves in this process. We have also given a series of guidelines to get along with the audience, lose stage fright and generate interest and reflection in our audience," he explained.

Under this same approach, Dr. Nerea Varo, a physician from the Biochemistry Department of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, shared through the micro-workshop "Listen, think... then express"; the clues and tools on how to develop skills for efficient and assertive communication. As she recalled, the resident's training, despite its multidisciplinary nature, is scarce in relation to teaching and communication skills. "These skills can be learned, trained and improved. That is why I believe that acquiring knowledge and tools related to communication, questioning their style as a communicator, can help them to enhance their presentation skills, conversation and presentation of ideas," she explained.

SEQC^ML Residents and Young Scientists Commission

Among the main lines of work of the SEQC^ML Commission of Residents and Young Scientists is to encourage the participation of residents in the different commissions or working groups of the Society and to carry out activities (face-to-face or on-line) of interest to clinical laboratory residents, such as the II Conference of Residents and New Clinical Laboratory Specialists. In Dr. Maroto's words, training residents and new specialists is fundamental, as they represent the future of the profession. "Right now residents and new specialists are at the beginning of their working career and, therefore, it is the ideal time to lay the foundations of what will later become their professional profile. The most important thing is to achieve a solid knowledge base to develop adequate professional criteria, and associated with this will come everything else, such as the ability to make decisions or be resolute," she concludes.

Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEQC^ML)

The Spanish Society of Laboratory Medicine (SEQC^ML) -founded in 1976- is an active member of the International and European Clinical Laboratory Federations IFCC and EFLM. It currently comprises almost 3,000 professionals and its main objective is to bring together all scientists interested in the field of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, to promote the dissemination of scientific and technical publications, to organize meetings, courses and congresses of national and international character and to cooperate with other Scientific Societies. The Society also wants to contribute to the study and recommendation of standardized methods and to establish guidelines and recommendations for training in the field of Laboratory Medicine. For more information: www.seqc.es