Congratulations to Leonie Wheeldon

The BAC were delighted that one of our Executive members, Leonie Wheeldon, was awarded Biomedical Scientist of the Year at the prestigious Advancing Healthcare Awards on the 26th of April 2024.

Leonie became one of the few biomedical scientists to achieve the Advanced Specialist Diploma in Diagnostic Cytopathology and has, for many years, relentlessly and enthusiastically trained other healthcare professionals in her own and other specialties, locally and nationally, particularly in the practice of Rapid Onsite Evaluation (ROSE).

Leonie has led the development of the new BAC website, been involved in the planning of the IBMS Congress programme and continues to be a real inspiration to cytologists across the UK and beyond and to her Executive member colleagues.

Leonie said:

"I am truly grateful for this award. This recognition is testament to the dedicated laboratory teams, clinical teams, national and international teams that I have had the privilege to work with. 

This would not be possible without each and every one of them. Diagnostic Cytopathology is fundamental in the delivery of highly effective cancer pathways. Medical advances utilising smaller sampling methods puts Cytology services at the forefront of modern healthcare and integration with medical services puts our personnel in the heart of the clinical interface.

I’m excited to see the developments of cytology services with widespread excellence becoming a standard of practice. Making these meaningful contributions in our field truly results in positive impacts to pathology services and most importantly patient care"