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My name is Dr. Carmen Wiley and
I'm the AACC President this year

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and next year.

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What I do during the day is I'm the
Chief Clinical Officer at Veravas,

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which is a startup company

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and we believe we have a technology that
can improve the quality of specimens prior

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to laboratory testing.

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I think there's several highlights that
I've really enjoyed during the meeting.

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First of all, I think the opening
plenary session really set the stage.

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Dr. Walt took us from basic research
all the way to clinical application,

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and I thought that was a beautiful
way to set the stage for the meeting.

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The expo floor has been amazing.

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It's been a record year for us.

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We have 835 people exhibiting,
which is a record, which is fantastic.

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We have nearly 20,000 attendees,
so all of that is great.

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Additionally, we cover everything from
point of care, infectious disease,

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genomics, laboratory management.

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I'm sure there's things that I've missed,
but the topics have been extensive.

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So I think that everybody's been able
to find something that they can learn

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from and take back to them,
back to their labs, and practices,

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and diagnostic companies.

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When I started my fellowship, I was
encouraged to be involved in AACC

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and it allowed me to meet lots of
people and have scientific exchange,

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but I've also created
lifelong friendships.

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Additionally, when I was at a meeting
when it was in LA, I met some folks just

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at breakfast and we were just chatting

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and they decided to expand
their department, and they

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wanted another co-director.

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And they picked up the phone,
and they called me, and they said,

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"We don't know if you're really looking to
make a change, but we really think you'd

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be a great fit for us."

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And so I explored the opportunity and
ultimately ended up accepting it.

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And that was wonderful.

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And then when I was ready to leave
clinical practice of laboratory medicine,

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I had made enough connections
with my diagnostic colleagues.

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And I said, "You know, I'd like to
work in the field of diagnostics.

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What kind of job, you know, do you
think I'd be a good fit for?"

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And they said, "Well, what do you
think of medical scientific affairs?"

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And I said, "Well, tell me about it."

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And so I ultimately ended up joining Roche
Diagnostics and working in their medical

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and scientific affairs department.

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And then, while I was working
there, someone else had noticed me

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through connections at AACC and
said, "I'm going to be creating

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a startup company

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and I noticed your background,
both as a practicing laboratorian,

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your background in medical and
scientific affairs and diagnostics,

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and some of the research that you've
done in your career, we think you'd be

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a good fit. Would you consider it?"

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So I honestly believe I wouldn't be the
chief clinical officer today at Veravas if

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I wasn't involved and interacting
with all the folks here in AACC.

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So I think meetings like this and the
face-to-face interactions are so critical.

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We can accomplish a lot of things by
email, but we also tend to get inundated

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with electronic communications and email.

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And you can't always express your
interest and your tone in those things

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and so when we have face-to-face
interactions, we can get excited,

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and we can explore and go down new,
different pathways because the exchange

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is rapid, personal, and can just
flex, and ebb and flow, you know.

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So I really think that having these
face-to-face meetings is critical.

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It leads to collaborations,
new science, innovation.

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I just can't say enough about how
important I really think it is.

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So I think one of the exciting
technologies that came out of this meeting

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was through AACC's disruptive technology
section, and Inflammatix presented a great

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solution to detecting sepsis through a
multi-marker type session and a way to go

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forward with that. And so
that was really exciting.

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I think the other thing that I don't know
if it's necessarily new and innovative,

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but what's also really exciting is that
the diagnostic companies that have the

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very large analyzers,
they're really improving their

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efficiencies and decreasing
the blood volume that they need,

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which is better for patients.

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And then on the complete opposite
spectrum are the near-patient and point

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of care testing.

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They're getting more accurate, more
precise, getting to the point where

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they almost look like the
core laboratory instruments.

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And both of those things are really going
to change and improve patient care.

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I think what's really going to be
taking off in the next few years is

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artificial intelligence, data
analytics, and machine learning.

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Obviously, there will be improvements in
instrumentation, but I really think where

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we're going to see huge leaps and bounds
is in how we use those tools to better

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diagnose patients and
have faster diagnosis.

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And it's actually part of AACC's strategic
plan is to figure out how to educate our

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membership on this topic and how to
collaborate with people who are already

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experts in this field.

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Because data analytics and machine
intelligence, they're used in a lot

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of different areas, and now we really want
to see how it's going to grow in the field

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of lab medicine.

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For our early-career clinical laboratory
scientists and clinical chemists,

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I think the best words of advice are
to get out there, meet other people,

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find out what they have done in their
careers, and then reflect on what you

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really want to do because we all
spend so much time in our careers,

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you need to find
something that you love.

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The second piece of advice if they allowed
me to give that to them, is just know that

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you can try something

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and if you don't like it, you
can move on to something else,

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or perhaps your life changes,
and you want to do something different

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and it's okay to try multiple careers and
really find the fit that fits you for your

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time in your life and know that there's
just so many opportunities out there

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in lab medicine that you should
find something you love.