PRESIDENT ’ S AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER ’ S MESSAGE
Taking Stock
Gynene Sullivan : Scott , I ’ ve heard you speak repeatedly about how during the pandemic , public health laboratories and APHL took on the role of “ truth teller ,” as we were the steadying voice amongst all the noise — not only telling the public health laboratory story but telling the public health story as well .
Scott Becker : The concept isn ’ t just to say , “ Hey ! Look at us , this is what we did .” It ’ s to go deeper and ground ourselves . Pre-pandemic , I knew that public health laboratories were truth tellers — we deliver information for analysis , answers and action . But during the pandemic , truth took on a whole other dimension . When things started to escalate in the early days and there was so much misinformation being shared , I kept saying , “ Science is the way to go because science will give us the answers we need .” How naïve I was . I remember people around me being very fearful , and my message was heard but not accepted because others saw what I didn ’ t see . And that knocked me off-kilter so much so that when I heard from a high-level administration official , “ You all need to go faster ,” I replied , “ If we only had a test that worked .” That was the moment I felt like I found my voice ; in my head something clicked and said , “ OK , no one else is going to tell the laboratory story . We need to do that and it ’ s something that I know our members will do in their communities , and that APHL can do nationally .”
Tim Southern : One of the things that I realized quickly in South Dakota is that it wasn ’ t just about being the truth teller , it was also about being a good storyteller . And you bring up a good point about science — where we think we will share the data and sway the masses . It didn ’ t work like that because science is hard to see and touch . Science is out of reach of most people because there ’ s very little common language that we can use . Even at the highest levels of state and federal government , people didn ’ t know laboratory science from any other discipline , so they really relied on folks like public health laboratory directors to help tell the COVID story . I remember working closely with [ former director of the Utah Public Health Laboratory ] Robyn
Atkinson-Dunn during the early months of the pandemic . We were on calls together twice a week with a federal team to raise their public health laboratory science acumen so they could turn around and better serve our communities . I remember when my governor and members of her cabinet visited the laboratory in early 2020 , and I had to tell a story that I had never told before ; I had to use a whole different language to get it done , and that was a process of trial and error . To be honest with you , it probably took a good six or eight months to finally bring that complex science into focus for our senior leaders , help them understand everything we were trying to accomplish , and why we could not move faster . The story I had to tell wasn ’ t just about a broken test — it was also about broken supply chains and a growing cascade of failures .
Sullivan : Usually laboratory jobs don ’ t come with as much of a personal and professional cost as was seen during the pandemic . How did those costs change you , your passion or your love for your work ?
Becker : The personal cost for me was the stress of what we were dealing with . It was attacks on APHL as an association from foreign actors , and attacks on me personally from nasty letters and emails . Getting called by the FBI made me realize we weren ’ t in the same universe we were a month earlier . But all the attacks made me want to double-down on the communication and on the need to get the right information out . I never thought we would talk directly to the public , but we did and the information we conveyed was sound and grounded .
Southern : I remember very distinctly the early months of 2020 and the frenetic pace . It was one of the only times that our public schools pulled kiddos back home and provided a remote learning program . As a single father , those days were some of the most challenging for my little family . I would go to the emergency operations center ( EOC ) in the morning before my son was even awake . At lunchtime I would bring him whatever was being catered at the EOC and help him with homework . In the evening , we would prepare a simple meal and then he would eventually drift off to bed and I would continue working from home . My 13-year-old grew two inches that spring and I didn ’ t even realize it . As challenging as those first months were personally and professionally , the past six months have been some of the hardest months for me since the pandemic started . The de-escalation from the pressure and intensity and the 18-hour days , that ’ s been hard . And it ’ s not just hard on me , it ’ s hard on my staff as well . But we are finding ways to get our minds and our bodies back to a place where we ’ re not feasting on stress . For what feels like the first time in years , we are focusing on self-care , creating a culture of support for one another beyond the laboratory , and we are finally taking the much-needed time to reconnect with family . We ’ re also refocusing on the testing programs that took a backseat during the pandemic , and we are finding creative and productive ways to invest in our infrastructure , our facility and our staff .
Sullivan : It sounds like you ’ re talking about coming back from a tour of duty and you ’ re reacclimating to whatever life used to look like before you went off to war , with a little post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) thrown in . Do you think sharing those stories of personal struggle are important ?
Becker : Absolutely , because even though the head is part of the body , mental health doesn ’ t have the same status as other aspects of health . We ’ re talking about a whole segment of the population who worked through the pandemic and worked on the pandemic . I think our public health workforce writ large had a very different experience than others . I think that stress and strain will be with us for the generation that went through it , and we ’ ve got to help each other . APHL is presenting a series of stress reduction and psycological safety webinars to open up those lines of communication . Because once we start this conversation , it ’ s imperative that we continue to talk about it .
2 LAB MATTERS Winter 2023
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