Alamance Community College (ACC) hosted its first-ever Histotechnology workshop as approximately 20 professionals from around the U.S. gathered in the college’s Biotechnology Center of Excellence laboratory to learn workflow strategies and gain continuing education credits toward their credentials.

 

Sponsored by Sakura Finetek, a worldwide manufacturer of histology equipment, the “Getting Smarter Again” workshop brought lab managers and pathology assistants from such locations as Duke University, Michigan, Florida, and even Colombia, South America.

 

Histotechnology is a science centering on the microscopic detection of tissue abnormalities for disease diagnosis and the treatment of diseases. ACC’s two-year program trains students to prepare tissue specimens for microscopic examination and identification.

 

Workshop participants made their home in ACC’s Center of Excellence facility April 17-18 where Joshua Greenlee, a Sakura employee from Arizona with 20 years of laboratory and histotechnology-related experience, led them through instructional activities.

 

Workshop activities were designed to be fun while teaching lessons for the participants to take back to their respective laboratories and work associates. For example, a variety of instructional games using Legos and squishy balls led Greenlee to talk about changing perspective to workflow, and changing from small batch to large batch in laboratories. Another hands-on game emphasized the importance of multi-tasking in a laboratory setting.

 

(Above) Histotechnology lab managers from around the U.S. and South America came to ACC for the two-day workshop.

 

“All the workshop participants work in manual, large batch kind of workflow that can be inefficient,” explained Greenlee. “The folks here are from different leadership positions from around the laboratory world, and they have come to this workshop to learn a different way and try to gain some efficiencies in the lab by changing the workflow in the processes that they use.”

 

Alamance Community College’s state-of-the-art Histotechnology department, along with Biotechnology and Medical Lab Technology programs, were the beneficiaries of a $1 million gift from Labcorp, Inc. in recent years that was used to purchase high-tech equipment and supplies for the laboratories in the Center of Excellence building.

 

“We are immensely proud of our Histotechnology program that plays a pivotal role in preparing students for critical careers in the healthcare and scientific research sectors,” said Dr. Lisa Johnson, Vice President of Instruction at ACC. “Through rigorous training and hands-on learning experiences, this program not only equips our students with the essential skills and knowledge needed to excel in the field of histotechnology, but also addresses the growing demand for skilled professionals in laboratory sciences.”

 

For more information about ACC’s Histotechnology associate degree program, contact Federico Lin, Histotechnology Coordinator, at 336-506-4348 or fjlin425@alamancecc.edu.