2023 BOT Candidate – Emily Nangano (Loter)

We would like to encourage all Fellow members to participate in the AAPA Board of Trustees (BOT) election.  Voting has been extended through Monday, October 31, 2022 at 11:59 pm CDT.  Fellow members who have not yet voted either online or onsite at the 47th Annual Conference in Minneapolis are invited to cast their vote online via SurveyMonkey (check your email for the ballot).  If you did not receive, or cannot locate, the ballot invite, please contact us at [email protected] for alternate means to vote.

To learn more about a candidate, click on their name above to be taken to their feature page.  For this election, you will be able to cast your vote for up to three of four candidates.

Results will be announced later in the year, and elected members will begin their terms in January 2023.

Thank you in advance for your participation!

Please tell the AAPA membership about yourself, and describe your past volunteer work.
I have been a member of the AAPA for roughly 10 years, starting as a student member and student delegate (Drexel University, 2013) and then as a fellow member.  Throughout that time I have been actively involved in the AAPA as a volunteer, serving primarily the Education Committee on the Meetings side.  I began my AAPA volunteer journey by helping out at conferences (scanning badges at breakfast and poster sessions, helping at the welcome tables, etc.) and then was asked to moderate a Q&A lecture at one of the Fall Conferences.  From there I moderated several Town Hall events and State of the Association Meetings, and supported the Education Committee by becoming the Speaker Recruitment Subcommittee Chair where I helped recruit lecturers for the Fall Conference and Spring Meeting.  In 2019 I became the Vice Chair for the Education Committee and worked hand in hand with our esteemed chair, Meghan Pickard, on several initiatives and ongoing operations of the Education Committee.  Serving alongside fellow Pathologists’ Assistants to help move the profession forward is a great honor, and one that I do not take lightly.  In addition to my volunteer work with the AAPA, I’m a Big Sister with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.  I have worked as a bench PA, a gross room supervisor, and an Anatomic Pathology Operations Manager in a variety of institutions including private labs, academic hospitals, and community hospitals.

Why are you interested in serving on the AAPA BOT?
As a member of the AAPA for roughly 10 years, starting as a student member and student delegate and then as a fellow member, I have been a witness and participant of the work our organization has done to propel the profession not only forward, but upward.  I am interested in serving on the board of trustees to continue to work collaboratively at a high level and advocate and help propel the profession, standards of care, and regard for the important work that pathologists’ assistants perform to the next level.

What is your understanding of the mission and vision of this organization?
The AAPA provides dedicated, comprehensive professional support for pathologists’ assistants.  This mission statement is multifaceted, but at its core seeks to elevate the pathologists’ assistant profession by providing educational opportunities and activities to support certification maintenance and continuing education credit, as well as to support and advocate for the resources and platforms to engage the medical and general community about the important work and services pathologists’ assistants provide to laboratories and patients.

What do you think should be the most important priority for AAPA?
I believe that the AAPA does a terrific job of realizing and supporting the core values of quality patient care and education.  We have a solid foundation with those two pillars and consistently make strides and improvements in our education platforms and patient care initiatives.  I feel that the profession would be best served with additional attention and resources allocated towards advocacy and collaboration.  The current climate regarding licensing, legislation, and meaningful updates to current requirements for testing personnel is the most important priority that pathologists’ assistants face today.  We constantly hear stories about unqualified and untrained personnel being used to perform advanced macroscopic evaluations and have personally experienced this firsthand.  Ensuring that we advocate and earnestly collaborate with our immediate medical community – surgeons, oncologists, and pathologists – to elevate and highlight the value that having appropriately trained and competent personnel in the AP lab, will help maintain the integrity of our profession.  This may include licensing, incremental and meaningful work towards legislative changes, and substantial advocacy with our clinical colleagues and their professional organizations.

Is there a particular area that you feel could be improved within AAPA?
Outreach, advocacy, and collaboration would benefit from immediate additional resources, both human/volunteer and financial, in my opinion.  Continuous and consistent messaging of the value that PA professionals bring to the lab and to the communities-at-large, combined with thoughtful and persistent outreach with our clinical colleagues will serve our profession.  I think the AAPA would also be well served by having a larger and scaled up social media presence that performs a dual task of both outreach to members AND outreach to the medical community and our clinical colleagues and their professional organizations.

What is the biggest challenge your lab faces today?
Currently the biggest challenge I face day-to-day in an AP lab supervisory role is staffing (PAs, grossing technologists, histotechnologists, cytologists, lab assistants, and specimen processors).  We are tasked with doing more work with less resources, and trying to maintain daily operations while getting new technologies implemented can be a challenge.  I have historically worked in labs that have employed minimally qualified personnel to perform complex grossing tasks, and while I have made strides in getting the senior leaders to re-think our current state, it has been a painful and arduous uphill battle.  I was able to use many of the resources that the AAPA makes available, such as the Scope of Practice, Position Statement on the use of Grossing Techs, in some of my recent proposals.