Georgia Carr has worked as a frontline medical laboratory technologist (MLT) in biochemistry, hematology, and transfusion medicine, later overseeing flow cytometry as well as quality and compliance. Both her grandparents and parents were born in Northwestern Ontario, which is where her passion lies. Georgia is currently the laboratory manager at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), working to ensure optimal delivery of laboratory services for the region. 

Valerie Hencze has been a volunteer medical laboratory assessor with Accreditation Canada Diagnostics for over 12 years. Her expertise is drawn from her 20 years of experience as a core lab technologist. For the past 17 years, Valerie has worked in the department of anatomical pathology at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. She describes her role as an assessor being a key piece of quality management, as a medical laboratory technologist.

Gerald MacDonald is a medical radiation technologist certified in radiography as well as magnetic resonance. His career has taken him from small community hospitals to the private sector, to large teaching hospitals. He now manages a growing diagnostic imaging department at Peterborough Regional Health Centre. He was among the first group of assessors who trained for the Diagnostic Imaging accreditation program and has been an assessor for the first two diagnostic imaging assessments.

Laurie Sweeting is a medical laboratory technologist (MLT) with further education in health services management and public administration. Laurie has had the opportunity to work with numerous laboratory teams in major academic hospitals. Through her work at the Ontario Ministry of Health (MOH) and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), Laurie has helped shape provincial laboratory policies and programs. She is currently the director of operations and quality manager at In-Common Laboratories (ICL), a not-for-profit laboratory and broker of laboratory tests that provides test referral services upon which Ontario laboratories depend. Laurie notes that ICL services have recently expanded to work with pharmacists to support the COVID-19 response.

Please join us in extending our best wishes to IQMH President, Jeff Sumner, who is retiring on March 31, 2021. Jeff has been leading IQMH since 2017 and has dedicated his career to improving the quality of medical laboratories across the country for many years.