“I would like to thank everyone at CMPT, UBC Department of Pathology, CMPT technical committees, subcontractors, collaborators and especially the participants, for your continued support of CMPT programs. It has been a privilege to work in a field I love…
Category Archive:
New Continuing Education opportunity! – Laboratory Cases in Clinical Microbiology –
CMPT is pleased to offer a completely online, self-paced course based on the cases presented in our PT challenges for Clinical Bacteriology, Clinical Mycology, and Enteric Parasitology. This continuing educational opportunity is offered as a program, including the three categories…
Posted in News
CMPT thanks our long-standing Technical Committee members Brad Jansen and Denise Sitter for their services and support.
Brand Jansen “Dr. Fungus” as he liked to sign his emails, retired from Alberta Precision Labs mycology laboratory this year and we wish him all the best in his new chapter in life. Brad has been part of the Mycology…
Posted in News
BCIT Interns at CMPT
This Summer, two interns from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) Medical Laboratory Technologist program spent part of their summer break at CMPT. Myron Xie and Yun-kun Li spent 3.5 and 1.5 months at CMPT lab learning about quality…
Posted in Continuing Education, News
A not so simulated case of contaminated blood agar plates in the microbiology laboratory
A recent paper challenge scenario sent to our clinical bacteriology program participants presented a case of contaminated blood agar plates with beta hemolytic colonies that showed small Gram-positive bacilli when observed in a Gram stain. Participants were offered a series of…
Posted in Clinical Microbiology
Proficiency Testing as a tool to highlight issues with sample processing when analyzing stool samples to investigate infectious diarrhea using multiplex assays.
In January 2023 the British Columbia Ministry of Health under the Laboratory Services Act approved a pathogen multiplex panel fee code item to encourage diagnostic microbiology laboratories to move towards syndromic testing.In response to this change in the diagnostic approach,…
Posted in Clinical Microbiology
CMPT is hiring a Communications Assistant
Job Summary The Communications Assistant will work at the Canadian Microbiology Proficiency Testing Program (CMPT), a service unit within the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. The Communications Assistant will be responsible for supporting the CMPT Editor, Education Coordinator with…
Posted in News
New Programs
Virology CMPT will be launching its Respiratory Panel program early 2023. This panel will include SARS CoV-2, Influenza A, Influenza B, and RSV viruses. For more information please contact CMPT. Enteric Parasitology – Molecular CMPT will be offering PT samples…
New Virology Program Expert Committee
CMPT would like to welcome our new Virology Expert Committee; Nancy Matic, MD, FRCPC, (D)ABMM Dr. Matic studied Microbiology (Honours Bachelor of Science) at the University of Guelph and earned her MD from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. She then…
Issues with Piperacillin-Tazobactam (PIP-TAZ) Breakpoints
In CMPT Challenge M221-5 (July, 2022), a simulated blood culture with Acinetobacter baumanii, antimicrobial susceptibilities for piperacillin-tazobactam (Pip-Taz) were ungraded due to lack of consensus by the participants. It was unknown what breakpoints were being used for reporting this agent.…
