Kiana Jessie, histopathology technician at the College Station laboratory, is a 2021 recipient of the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) Director’s Excellence Award in the technical category.
Jessie joined TVMDL over six years ago. Throughout her tenure, she has proven to be an asset to the histopathology section and the pathologists working at the College Station laboratory.
“Given her reliability, quality, and strong work ethic, the histopathology department leadership has delegated more duties to Kiana,” Assistant Agency Director for Pathology Gabriel Gomez, DVM, PhD, DACVM and nominator, said. “All her added responsibilities were once done by the section supervisory personnel; however, Kiana’s willingness and superb performance have allowed section leadership staff to focus their efforts on other pressing issues while Kiana continues to do an excellence job in these areas.”
In addition to her typical duties as a technician, Jessie is responsible for maintaining critical testing equipment within her section, such as the immunohistochemical stainers and the automatic special stainer. She is also charged with securing and maintaining control tissue for special stains, preparing control slides, and managing inbound and outbound paraffin blocks from other diagnostic laboratories.
Aside from other notable qualities, Jessie is noted as being adaptable. This was initially demonstrated with the implementation of TVMDL’s digital pathology services. With this implementation, workflows within histopathology and pathology needed to be adapted to maintain turnaround times; one of which was developing an evening shift. Jessie was one of the first technicians to begin working the altered work schedule and since trained other technicians to do so as well.
Another testament of Jessie’s adaptability came last summer and fall when the College Station laboratory led the testing portion of a statewide mandate enacted by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). Starting in June, TVMDL experienced an influx of submissions for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing. It was critical clients received results within a reasonable turnaround time, therefore, the histopathology section was tasked with working additional hours to ensure samples were tested quickly. In addition to taking on an additional workload, Jessie was also active in training newly hired technicians on section and testing processes to ensure testing continued efficiently.
“Kiana has demonstrated that she is very reliable, knowledgeable, positive, respectful, patient, and a hardworking individual,” Gomez said. “She takes pride in her work and is committed to TVMDL and the overall success of the anatomic pathology section.”
Please join TVMDL in congratulating this year’s Director’s Excellence Award recipients.