Personal

December 2005

Dr. Westgard visited a dozen countries and dozens of cities this year. At the end of this year of travels, he sends out thanks to countless individuals who came to listen, to talk, and to learn together about quality.

When people ask what I’ve been doing this past year, I tell them I’ve been jet-lagged. I’ve flown over 100,000 miles on my favorite bankrupt airline. You really do have to make a choice between bankrupt airlines when you fly in the US these days. The planes are almost always full, which makes one wonder how they ever made money before, or whether this is just the current business strategy for renegotiating contracts, getting rid of pension plans, etc.

It’s been wonderful to meet so many people at conferences around the world. This year I’ve been to the LabQuality meeting in Helsinki, Finland; Quality in the Spotlight in Antwerp, Belgium; Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute meeting on “QC for the Future” in Baltimore; Institute for Quality in Laboratory Medicine in Atlanta; Euromedlab 2005 in Glasgow, Scotland; LabKvalita in Bratislava, Slovakia; International Critical Care Symposium in Saint Malot, France; ACLPS in Pittsburgh; AACC in Orlando; G2 Lab Institute Symposium on Lab Quality in Washington DC; Mexican Federation of Clinical Pathology in Monterrey, Mexico. Plus I’ve participated in workshops on quality control and quality management in Chicago, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Newark, Detroit, Syracuse, Tulsa, San Francisco, Dallas, and Sioux Falls in the US, as well as Birmingham, England; Den Haag, Holland; Brussels, Belgium; and Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, and New Dehli, India.

A few of my favorite moments are captured in the picture gallery included here.

On the trip to Helsinki, we stopped off at Uppsala, which is where my work on quality control got started during a 1976 sabbatical year. Uppsala is like a second home and there are certain landmarks, like the castle shown here, that make me feel like I’m back where I should be. This picture is shot from the hospital, where I spend most of my time during that year.
The Quality in the Spotlight meeting in Antwerp is held in an historic building with a timber frame structure. Here’s the lecture hall, which is located in the top floor of the building. It sets a high standard for quality!
Euromedlab 2005 in Glasgow allowed us to visit the home of Rennie Mackintosh, who was one of the leaders in the Arts & Crafts movement. I’m a bit of a collector of mission furniture, so it was wonderful to see the furnishings of the “tea room.
As part of Euromedlab 2005, we had a wonderful banquet at a Scottish castle. Here’s a picture of me with some of the ladies who attended. They asked me for the picture, not the other way around as you might have suspected!
From Glasgow, we went via Vienna to Bratislava for the LabKvalita meeting. Here’s my good friend Per Hyltoft Petersen asking one of those impossible to answer questions! Per is from Denmark and has been an important contributor to the educational efforts in Eastern European countries. They have honored him by presenting a Per Hyltoft Petersen award each year of this meeting.
I keep saying “we” and here we are in Bratislava. That’s my wife Joan, who often travels with me on interesting trips, such as this one.
We went hiking in the High Tatras with Jan Balla and his wife. What a beautiful area, but large parts were devastated by high winds last year which blew down whole forests. Here we are ready to enjoy a beer after a couple hours of hiking. That was the best beer ever, believe me!
Joan managed to squeeze in a weekend in Prague, a city we had never visited and now would like to visit again. Here we are touring the city in an old antique car. We had a driver – I would never try this on my own.
You can’t take a bad picture in Prague. Just point and shoot, anywhere, and it will give you a wonderful picture. Here’s an example
From Prague, we went to Saint Malot on the French coast for the Critical Care Symposium. Another wonderful “old city” with remarkable views, as shown here.
In July, we attended the AACC meeting in Orlando. This is the only meeting where Westgard QC actually exhibits. We appreciated seeing many of you at our booth during that meeting. Here we are, the whole company!
In November, it was London and a celebration of my birthday – not telling which one, but it’s getting to be a pretty big number! Here’s a familiar scene in London, a big red bus. Not sure if you can read the sign on the side, but it says November 18, my birthday. Of course, they were advertising the opening of the latest Harry Potter movie, but it is still a good remembrance of that day.

Now it is mid-December and snowy here in Madison. We are anticipating having all our grandchildren here over Christmas. The tree is up and Joan has been wrapping presents for two days solid. Another remarkable year, with so much to be thankful for, in spite of the turbulent and troubled times.

And we have big plans for 2006!

The Westgard QC Madison workshops will be held June 5-7, 2006. We are adopting more of a conference format and will feature many outside speakers to bring in their experience and expertise. The theme will be “Evidence-Based Laboratory Quality Management.”

• Day 1 will focus on current practice guidelines for quality management, including updates on CLIA, JCAHO, and CAP policies and procedures, plus presentations on the patient safety movement, national laboratory quality indicators, and risk management.
• Day 2 will provide in-depth applications of Six Sigma for analytic processes, pre- and post-analytic processes, plus quality assessment of laboratory testing on the basis of proficiency testing and peer data.
• Day 3 will be special! Callum Fraser will present a morning workshop on “Quality Goals.” The afternoon will follow with discussions on how to translate quality goals into manufacturing specifications and laboratory operating specifications, which include the QC necessary to assure the desired quality goals is actually achieved.

James O. Westgard, PhD, is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison. He also is president of Westgard QC, Inc., (Madison, Wis.) which provides tools, technology, and training for laboratory quality management.