CACB Board Report
Submitted by Dr. Kun-Young Sohn, CACB Secretary
The 3rd Meeting of the 2024-2025 CACB Board was held in Chicago, USA on July 27, 2025. The following is a summary of the discussion.
Chair’s Report – Dr. Isolde Seiden Long
Dr. Isolde Seiden Long presented her final report to the CACB Board as Chair. She expressed her gratitude to the board members and to head office for all their work and support during her three years as Chair.
The Regulation of the Profession and Advocacy Subcommittee has now posted several resources in the Members Only section of the CSCC website, including a description of the position of a clinical biochemist in Canada, a checklist process to consider for application for regulation for clinical biochemists, and a list of regulated professions and associated regulatory colleges.
The CACB-OCQ Harmonization Committee met on May 1, 2025. The confidentiality agreement for examination candidates has now been ratified by OCQ as well as CACB.
The Board thanked Isolde Seiden Long for her leadership through many key activities for CACB, including the accreditation of two new training programs in Canada, the revision of the Syllabus, a change to MCQ questions for part 1 of the CACB written exam, and the moving of the Professional Development program to a new website.
Secretary’s Report – Dr. Kun-Young Sohn
As of July 2, 2025, CACB has a total of 230 members: 4 Founding Fellows, 161 Fellows, and 64 Emeritus Fellows.
Treasurer’s Report – Dr. Saranya Arnoldo
The Treasurer’s Report showed a net surplus of $26,270 for January to June 2025.
Certification Committee – Dr. Dana Nyholt
The Certification Committee successfully developed the 2025 CACB oral examination, emphasizing real-life clinical scenarios, expanded use of supplemental data, and case-based approaches. The oral exam continues to incorporate Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives, and the implementation of structured grading rubrics has enhanced clarity regarding performance expectations, reduced variability among examiners, and significantly shortened the time required for deliberation and consensus. The Committee extends its thanks to Felix Leung, who led the development of this year’s oral exam.
The Committee is actively preparing multiple-choice questions for the written exam, which will be implemented in November 2026. Training programs have been informed of this change through the Training Program Accreditation Committee (TPAC).
Credentials Committee – Dr. Marie-Hélène Levesque
A total of four Certification applications were approved: 2 from University of Toronto, 1 from McMaster University and 1 from University of Calgary. Six Fellowship applications were approved: 3 under Route 1 (CACB certification), 1 under Route 2 (OCQ certification) and 2 under Route 4 (DABCC certification). One remedial training application has been submitted and approved.
The Board approved a motion that candidates applying for fellowship under Route 4 must successfully complete both the CACB written and oral examinations in order to obtain the title of CACB Fellow. This requirement will not be applied retroactively to Fellows who have previously completed the certification process through Route 4, and the effective date for this change will be the written exam cycle, beginning November 2026.
Maintenance of Competence (MOC) Committee – Dr. Ihssan Bouhtiauy
All 20 Fellows who were audited passed the audit. The process with the reminders seems to have had a significant impact on the timely submission of PD Credits. Annual PD certificates are now issued in an electronic format for the sake of convenience and sustainability and feedback from Follows has been positive. The MOC is in the process of reviewing all the PD categories to see if they are still appropriate and if there are any gaps.
Eight meetings were accredited in the 2024-2025 Board session:
- IATDMCT International Congress, September 14-18, 2024
- Ontario Society of Clinical Chemistry (OSCC) Annual Scientific Meeting (joint with IQMH) – October 10-11, 2024
- 44èeme Session de formation continue de l’ABCQ, October 8-11, 2024
- Alberta Society of Clinical Chemists (ASCC) Annual General Meeting, October 18-19, 2024
- BC Section Invited Speaker, October 21, 2024
- Alberta Society for Human Toxicology (ASHT) annual meeting, Canmore, Alberta, March 7, 2025
- 45ième Session de Formation Continue de l’Association des Biochimistes Cliniques du Québec (ABCQ), Magog, QC, May 13-16, 2025, in Magog, QC
- Canada Symposium, 2025 Joint ADLM-CSCC Conference, Chicago, IL, July 28, 2025
The MOC Committee is still looking to recruit a new member who is bilingual in both English and French, a special need for the accreditation of the SQBC and ABCQ Annual Conferences (the information submitted is in French). Anyone interested, please reach out to Head Office (info@cscc.ca).
Nominations and Awards Committee – Dr. Daniel Beriault
Dr. Felix Leung has been nominated/accepted to the board of directors, and a temporary board position – Chair of Ethics/Code of Conduct Task Force – has been opened to help create a CSCC Code of Conduct document. Board roles for 2025-26 will be decided at the first CACB Board meeting of the 2025-26 session.
Dr. Jay Kalra has been nominated for the CACB award.
Training Program Accreditation Committee (TPAC) – Dr. Vilte Barakauskas
TPAC is looking to add a member at large to the committee. A member-at-large position description has been created, and the process of selection will be formally included in the TPAC Terms of Reference.
The preliminary site visit questionnaire has been reorganized and clarified to better explain the purpose of certain questions to the assessors and the training programs.
The Board agreed timelines for the implementation of the revised syllabus as follows:
| Time | Action |
| Sept 2025: | Broad membership review (one month only); syllabus will be posted in the members-only section of the CSCC website for feedback; feedback will be limited to editorial changes only (clarity errors, omissions, and grammatical errors) |
| Nov/Dec 2025: | Approval of revised syllabus required by CACB Board and OCQ Board |
| January 2026: | Publication date |
| July 2027: | Full implementation (accreditations use the revised syllabus from now on) |
| Fall 2028: | First certifications with the new syllabus |