Program/Sponsorship

Opening Keynote

The Courage to Lead: Finding Truth in Our Laboratories
Emily E. Volk, MD, FCAP, President, American College of Pathologists


Being a pathologist and a leader in health care often requires a firm understanding that the foundation of all medicine is based on the truth in the laboratory. With humor, triumph and humility, Emily E. Volk, MD, FCAP—through personal stories—vividly illustrates her coming of age as a new-in-practice woman physician during less politically correct times, and the lessons learned throughout her own career journey. These experiences, while additionally dealing with the challenges of being a working parent, shaped her strategies for effective leadership in the laboratory.

Emily E. VolkDr. Volk is the chief medical officer at Baptist Health Floyd, a tertiary care hospital in southern Indiana; an associate professor of pathology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine; and president of the College of American Pathologists.

Closing Keynote

The Foundations of Leadership - How Impact and Self-Respect Change Lives and Workplaces
Drew Dudley, Author of "This is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters."

“How many of you are completely comfortable with calling yourself a leader?”

Leadership author and educator Drew Dudley has asked that question to thousands of audiences around the world, and in fewer than 1% of those audiences were the majority of people willing to call themselves leaders. That’s a problem, and this session will focus on how to solve it.

Drew aims to demonstrate that there is a form of leadership to which we should all aspire: one that is driven by a daily commitment to acting on a series of core leadership values. Embracing the idea that “leadership isn’t in the big things, it’s in the consistent things”, Drew will lay out a process to help you embed impactful leadership behaviors on a daily basis.

Recognizing that all leaders struggle with doubt and uncertainty putting their leadership into practice however, Drew goes on to meld self-care insights from all over the world with his own story to present a series of strategies for embedding self-care and building self-respect into your daily leadership. 

This practical exploration of leadership, impact, self-awareness, and resilience will remind you that we cannot lead others until we can lead ourselves and show you how great leaders know how to put themselves first while still serving others.


Somewhere around the middle of his undergraduate education, Drew realized engaging with the world was a lot more fun than writing papers about it. As he moved into his career, he took on the challenge of creating and building the Leadership Development Program at the University of Toronto, which became the largest and most dynamic in the country.

It was those leadership students who changed the course of Drew’s professional life: they secretly organized a campaign to put him onstage at TEDxToronto 2010, where he delivered a talk that would go on to generate more than 5 million views around the web. In 2018, Drew shared both his story and the Day One process in his first book This is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership That Matters.

Schedule at a Glance

All times Eastern Standard

Friday January 14 Sessions
11:00 am Opening Keynote: The Courage to Lead-Finding Truth in Our Laboratories
Dr. Emily Volk, President, College of American Pathologists
12:30 pm Coaching and Providing Feedback
Joe Kalkman
Test Utilization
Shannon Jongeward
1:30 pm Extended Break for Networking/Roundtables
2:30 pm Recruitment and Retention
Shawn Wierzbowski
LIS and EHR Integration
Brad Brimhall
3:45 pm Writing Performance Evaluations
Crystal McMullen
Successful Outreach Programs
Sandy Richman
4:45 pm Extended Break for Networking/Roundtables
5:30 pm Plenary: Advocating with the C Suite
Rick Panning

Saturday January 15 Sessions
11:00 am Plenary: Succession Planning
Tywauna Wilson, Stephanie Whitehead, Lona Gordon Small
12:15 pm Lab 2.0
Diana Kremitske
"Keeping Up with the Regulations"
Suzanne Butch
1:30 pm Extended Breakout for Networking/Roundtables
2:30 pm Biases in the Interview Process
Denise Williams
Role of the Project Manager
Tim Eiler
3:45 pm Addressing Bias
Naomi Banks
Lean Problem Solving
Hannah Vanderlinden-Willis
4:45 pm Extended Breakout for Networking/Roundtables
5:30 pm Closing Keynote: Self-Respect-The Foundation of Leadership
Drew Dudley. Author of "This is Day One: A Practical Guide to Leadership
That Matters."