When Debra Wood “fell into” the field of histology back in the late 1970s, she never imagined the microscopic study of tissues and cells would take her to the South Asian nation of Nepal, with its giant mountains, giant monkeys and spiders — and giant health care needs.
Wood, MSEd, an assistant professor of clinical pathology and laboratory medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, directs IU’s oldest distance learning program. Begun in 1995, the Health Professions program in histotechnology trains laboratory technicians to process biologic samples, helping pathologists diagnose diseases.
“Back then, it was more like a correspondence program with lecture notes printed and mailed along with VHS tapes,” Wood said. “When I came in 2004, we piloted the first online web conferencing tool for the university and moved it from VHS to online lectures.”
Over the years, Wood has trained laboratory scientists throughout the U.S. and in several countries, including South Korea, Switzerland, St. Croix and Puerto Rico. The program addresses a critical workforce shortage in the field.
‘Leprosy still exists?’
In 2018, Wood joined dermatopathologist Simon Warren, MBBS, on a medical mission to Nepal supporting Lalgadh Leprosy Hospital, which sees more than 100,000 patients a year with leprosy and other diseases.
“My first question was, ‘Leprosy still exists?’,” recalled Wood. She soon discovered it remains an epidemic in Nepal and several other developing nations. Thousands of new cases are reported each year in Latin America and South Asia.
Also known as Hansen’s disease, leprosy is a chronic, infectious skin disease caused by bacteria. If left untreated, it can affect peripheral nerves and the upper respiratory tract. In many cultures, like Nepal, it carries a social stigma and is seen as a curse from the gods.
Forever etched in Wood’s memory is a Nepalese woman living alone in a cave, ostracized from her family and community as “untouchable” because of leprosy. Before receiving surgery and compassionate care at Lalgadh, she was severely depressed and said she wished to die.
“Leprosy is curable,” Wood said. “The main problem is getting people to come to the hospital from the villages to get tested and get treatment.”
The leprosy hospital provides holistic care — multidrug therapy, inpatient and outpatient services and training for those who must live with the disease’s damage, including loss of limbs. The hospital also works with villagers to reduce stigma and solve problems of nutrition and sanitation that contribute to leprosy’s spread.
Before Wood helped establish a histology lab at Lalgadh, diagnoses were often based solely on visual examination. When skin biopsies were taken, they needed to be driven to a laboratory 12 hours away, and results wouldn’t come back for two months. Tests for dermatologic diseases other than leprosy were largely unavailable.
Wood first traveled to Nepal in spring 2018 to observe, then embarked on a yearlong mission of obtaining equipment, arranging shipping and managing all the logistics for establishing a histology laboratory at Lalgadh. Warren, a former IU faculty member who recently moved to the University of Michigan, made the connections in Nepal and relied upon Wood’s expertise to build the lab and train histotechnologists.
“Between us, we were able to scavenge surplus histology equipment from IU Health and, in some cases, get it donated,” Warren said. “We shipped all the necessary equipment to Lalgadh for a basic histology lab and, on our second trip, Debra and I set it up.”
Equipment donations, which included three tissue processors, two embedding machines, three microtomes and many consumables, totaled about $100,000, Wood said. The Nepalese doctors and technicians also needed training to use it.
IU School of Medicine hosted a physician and a laboratory technician from Nepal through the William “Joe” Moores Fellowship in Dermatopathology program; ongoing training is supported through the IU Foundation’s Nepal Dermatology Training Fund. Wood secured a scholarship from the National Society of Histotechnology to fund her return trip to Nepal and paid several expenses herself.
“I trained the technician who came here, and then I observed him as he trained another technician there, to make sure the trainee becomes the trainer,” Wood said.
When Dr. Krishna Bahadur Tamang came to Indianapolis for his dermatopathology fellowship, Wood connected with him on the human level. She bought necessities like toilet paper and towels to help him settle into his apartment and taught him to use American appliances like a coffee maker, dishwasher and clothes dryer.
“That started a yearlong journey to make him feel comfortable and welcomed,” she said.
On Sundays, Wood picked the Nepalese doctor up for church and took him to the grocery store. She also treated him to the ultimate racing spectacle — the Indianapolis 500.
“Debra was able do something amazing, in my opinion, and completely outside the box,” Warren said. “She was able to take her hard-won expertise and knowledge and contribute that to a team effort to do something completely different in a poor country. Further, she was able to make real emotional connections with the people that she worked with.”
Lab in a Box
Wood got certified in histology at IU Health University Hospital after high school graduation. She learned about the field through an after-school job — helping clean an oral pathologist’s office after its basement was flooded. Wood later became an elementary school teacher in Hancock County, Indiana. When she took the program director role at IU School of Medicine, her training in histology and education merged.
IU’s online programs in histotechnology have trained students working in over 400 laboratories nationwide.
“I’m glad to be helping the health care workforce shortage as staffing is at a critical low right now,” Wood said. “I’m also helping my students reach their goals and grow in their careers.”
Wood’s global philanthropy in pathology also continues. After her experiences in Nepal, she secured equipment donations for a histology lab in Tajikistan. She sent equipment for another “lab in a box” to Uzbekistan in July 2024 and conducted training remotely.
“There were people over there who knew histology, but they didn’t know how to use the modern equipment,” Wood said. “They were still hand-processing tissue in jars and using little cardboard boxes for mold cultures.”
Wood learns of these needs from international trainees at IU, many of whom interact with Wood’s spouse, Barry, the executive director of anatomic pathology at IU Health.
As program director for histotechnology at the IU School of Medicine, Wood frequently travels to national conferences, where she has found vendors eager to help with lab equipment donations.
“When they hear the stories, they are so generous,” Wood said. “In these countries, they don’t have a whole lot, so they are very resourceful. They are just so thankful for what we are able to give them.”
Wood’s colleagues admire her passion for teaching students across the nation and globe, as well as in the local community. Barbara McGahey Frain, MS, director of clinical cytotechnology at the IU School of Medicine, collaborated with Wood on a program to introduce Indianapolis high school students to the field of pathology.
“Professor Wood has transformed the histotechnology program from a distance education program with lots of hard copy and ‘pencil and paper’ assignments to a dynamic, successful online program with several options to meet students’ needs,” Frain said. “She is a woman whose talent touches the state of Indiana and points far beyond through innovative collaborations, partnerships, and intellectual and cultural contributions.”
