ESCMID postgraduate technical workshop on intracellular bacteria: From biology to clinic

Mentor-mentee relationship in clinical microbiology

BACKGROUND

Clinical microbiology is a field in constant evolution, with increasing technological opportunities and a growing emphasis on human and social issues. Maintaining knowledge and skills and anticipating future changes is challenging both for laboratory managers and for all the co-workers. Training and succession preparation represents a unique opportunity to adapt/prepare future generations according to the evolutions of the field.

AIMS

The aim of this review is to provide to clinical microbiologists a reflection on ongoing technological and social changes in their field and a deepening of the central role of preparing future generations to these changes through a fruitful mentor-mentee relationship.

SOURCES

This narrative review relies on selected publications addressing mentor-mentee interactions in various academic fields, on interview with our colleagues and pairs, as well as on our personal experience.

CONTENT

From the qualities and aspects that emerged as necessary for a productive mentor-mentee interaction, we selected and discuss five of them for the mentor: the role and responsibility, the positioning, the vision, the scientific credibility, and the moral credibility, as well as five for the mentee: creativity, flexibility, energy, responsibility, and self evaluation.

IMPLICATIONS

This review emphasizes the importance of both the scientific and the ethical credibility of the mentor and the mentee as well as the importance of human and social values such as solidarity, equality, equity, respectfulness, and empathy, and might support mentor and mentee in the field of clinical microbiology and also in the field of infectious disease in their intent for a fruitful interaction.

Ten years of R&D and full automation in molecular diagnosis

A 10-year experience of our automated molecular diagnostic platform that carries out 91 different real-time PCR is described. Progresses and future perspectives in molecular diagnostic microbiology are reviewed: why automation is important; how our platform was implemented; how homemade PCRs were developed; the advantages/disadvantages of homemade PCRs, including the critical aspects of troubleshooting and the need to further reduce the turnaround time for specific samples, at least for defined clinical settings such as emergencies. The future of molecular diagnosis depends on automation, and in a novel perspective, it is time now to fully acknowledge the true contribution of molecular diagnostic and to reconsider the indication for PCR, by also using these tests as first-line assays.