Hey nursing family! This is a special week for us here in the laboratory. We are proudly celebrating Lab Week 2023 this week, an annual celebration of medical and clinical laboratory professionals. This week is a huge deal because your lab family rarely gets the recognition we deserve. Laboratorians are like the stage crew of the play. Without us, the show could not go on. Hear me out. Nursing is undeniably the bloodline of healthcare, while the laboratory is the heartbeat. Not only do you have the blood bank, you have chemistry, urology, histology, genetics, microbiology, hematology, and the list goes on and on. This is where the discovery of underlying diseases and diagnoses are confirmed. Without the laboratory, there is no complete healthcare system.

With that in mind, we would love you to celebrate with us! Please help us get the word out about who medical and clinical laboratorians are and the phenomenal work we do to help save lives. Of course, you can dust off your map or directions to the lab and celebrate with us in person, or you can take a unique approach to honor your lab family during Lab Week. Don’t worry; we’ve got you covered with a few ideas below.

• With administration permission, consider hanging a “Happy Lab Week” sign in your unit. This will help us get people curious about the work we do.

• A greeting card signed by nurses on your unit commemorating your favorite or most visited laboratory department. We would love this!

• Although we usually don’t get a proper lunch (we know you can relate), buy your favorite clinical lab scientist lunch one day this week, especially if you work evenings or nights. This will leave them speechless. Trust me!

• Nurse Managers, have a talk with lab managers/directors and see how you can help celebrate Lab Week. Having your support to help bring about laboratory awareness would mean the world to us.

• Create and wear stickers or buttons using the Medical Laboratory Professionals Week (MLPW) logo. 

You may notice a pattern here. We need your help with awareness. If you talk with a medical technologist, they will tell you that we are usually never recognized for our work or the lives we save. We are the forgotten bunch, or at least that’s the unfortunate unanimous sentiment of most laboratorians. This is why Lab Week is so important for us. Yes, we remain hopeful that we may gain recognition where it matters. However, like our nursing family, the love of people, science, and saving lives validate us.

We’d love it if you came to celebrate with us in a way that’s most authentic for you. It would mean the world to us. Happy Medical Laboratory Professionals Week!

Leda Toussaint, The Med Tech Matchmaker, CEO of GNTLE, and Director of Recruitment with Intro CLS, helps medical technologists and their future clinical lab employers build advantageous relationships. Connect with Leda on TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn.